“I have loved and been loved. I love and am loved. I have been engaged throughout my life in work that I love. I wanted to write plays and I did so. I wanted to work in a theatre which I helped to create and I did so. I wanted to write songs and sing and I have done that too. How many people are given the chance of fulfilling their desires?” – Ewan MacColl
Welcome to the official Ewan MacColl website, created and curated by his family. It’s still a work in progress but we hope you’ll find everything that you need somewhere within these pages but if not, please use the Contact page or the Press page and we’ll do our best to help.
Ewan MacColl is known to most people as a songwriter and singer, but he was also of significant influence in the worlds of theatre and radio broadcasting. He was a committed socialist all his life and his political sensibilities underpinned all his creative activities. His art reached huge numbers through the folk clubs, greater numbers through his recordings and untold millions through the radio. Although The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Dirty Old Town remain his biggest ‘hits’, MacColl wrote songs for many different contexts: incidental songs for theatrical productions, commissioned pieces for labour unions or political causes, songs stitched together from vernacular speech recorded for the radio documentary series The Radio Ballads, songs for rallying, striking, marching… and, of course, songs for singing in folk clubs.
Joy of Living: A Tribute to Ewan MacColl
“My function is not to reassure people. I want to make them uncomfortable. To send them out of the place arguing and talking.” – Ewan MacColl