Ewan
MacColl

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?

Welcome to the official website of Ewan MacColl

Lovingly created and curated by Ewan’s family. It’s still a work in progress but we hope you’ll find everything that you need somewhere within these pages.

Please sign up to the mailing list on the at the bottom of the page and we will keep you posted on other events. Or if you’d like to get in touch please visit our Contact 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.

Together with 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.

2015 marked Ewan’s centenary, with a number of concerts, new records and events that took place throughout the year. 2016 saw more events and a further tribute concert in Dublin. The Centenary page has more details about these.

“My function is not to reassure people. I want to make them uncomfortable. To send them out of the place arguing and talking.”

Please sign up to the mailing list on the at the bottom of the page and we will keep you posted on other events.

Joy of Living

A Tribute to Ewan MacColl

A double CD of Ewan’s songs, recorded by a host of well known artists, available on Cooking Vinyl Records.

BUY HERE!

Disc 1

1. Damien Dempsey – Schooldays Over
2. Martin Carthy – I’m Champion At Keeping ‘Em Rolling
3. The Unthanks – Cannily, Cannily
4. Seth Lakeman – The Shoals of Herring
5. Marry Waterson – The Exile Song
6. Jack Steadman & Jamie MacColl (Bombay Bicycle Club) – The Young Birds
7. Dick Gaughan – Jamie Foyers
8. Eliza Carthy – Thirty-Foot Trailer
9. Chaim Tannenbaum – My Old Man
10. Steve Earle – Dirty Old Town
11. Jarvis Cocker – The Battle Is Done With

Disc 2

1. Paul Buchanan – The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
2. Paul Brady – Freeborn Man
3. Norma Waterson – Moving On Song
4. Karine Polwart – The Terror Time
5. Martin Simpson – The Father’s Song
6. Christy Moore – The Companeros
7. Billy Bragg – Kilroy Was Here
8. Rufus & Martha Wainwright – Sweet Thames, Flow Softly
9. Kathryn Williams – Alone
10. David Gray – The Joy of Living

Discography