Innovative and inspiring, both collecting traditional songs, as well as writing new ones. He was, and remains, a very influential artist, writer and singer, committed to social issues. He travelled around the world collecting and recording songs.
Married to Peggy Seeger, he reportedly sang his most famous song - 'The first time ever I saw your face' - to her over the telephone during a transatlantic phone call.
His song 'Dirty Old Town' has been recorded hundreds of time, notably by The Spinners (the British folk group), Rod Stewart, The Pogues, Townes Van Zandt, The Specials, the Mudmen.
He was father to musicians Kirsty MacColl, Neill MacColl and Calum MacColl, and grandfather to Bombay Bicycle Club's Jamie MacColl.
MacColl and Seeger recorded several albums of political commentary songs. MacColl himself wrote over 300 songs, some of which have been recorded by as diverse as Roberta Flack, Planxty and Johnny Cash. In 2001, The Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook was published, which includes the words and music to 200 of his songs.
There is a plaque dedicated to MacColl in Russell Square in London. The inscription includes: "Presented by his communist friends 25.1.1990 ... Folk Laureate - Singer - Dramatist - Marxist ... in recognition of strength and singleness of purpose of this fighter for Peace and Socialism". In 1991 he was awarded a posthumous honorary degree by the University of Salford.
MacColl was very politically active and as well as political song he was a playwright and one of the founders of the Communist backed 'Edinburgh People's Festival' from 1951-54. The EPF was a victim of McCarthyism but provided the blueprint for today's Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Nobody Knew She Was There
Ewan MacColl Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The hour when wounded night begins to bleed
Stands at the back of the patient queue
The silent almost sweeping queue
Seein' no-one and not being seen
Working shoes are wrapped in working apron
Rolled in an oilcloth bag across her knees
Blue grey steely day is dawning
Draining the last few dregs of sleep away
Over the bridge and the writhing foul black water
Down through empty corridors of stone
Each of the blind glass walls she passes
Shows her twin in sudden flashes
Which is the mirror image, which is real?
Crouching hooded gods of word and number?
Accept her bent-backed homage as their due
The buckets steam like incense coils
Around the endless floor she toils
Cleaning the same white sweep each day anew
Glistening sheen of new-washed floors is fading
There where office clocks are marking time
Night's black tide has ebbed away
By cliffs of glass awash with day
She hurries from her labours still unseen
He who lies besides her does not see her
Nor does the child who once lay at her breast
The shroud of self-denial covers
Eager girl and tender lover
Only the faded servant now is left
How could it be that no-one saw her drowning
How did we come to be so unaware
At what point did she cease to be her
When did we cease to look and see her
How is it no-one knew she was there
The lyrics of Ewan MacColl’s “Nobody Knew She Was There” is a poignant reflection on the life of a working-class woman who remains invisible in society, toiling away in thankless jobs and enduring self-denial. In the cold, dark, early hours of morning, the woman walks to her job, standing in the back of the patient queue without anyone noticing her. She wears worn-out work shoes and carries a bag filled with tools for her job. The woman’s humble job of cleaning office floors is made all the more jarring when she is juxtaposed with the “crouching hooded gods of word and number,” who receive her bent-backed homage. The woman’s labor is described as endless, as she cleans the same white sweep every day anew.
As the day progresses and night turns into day, the woman finishes her work unnoticed and departs. The loneliness of her life is compounded in the sadness of the final stanza, where it is revealed that the only person who lies beside her is her husband, who "does not see her," nor does her child who she once breastfed. The woman is covered in a "shroud of self-denial"; the eager girl and tender lover have faded, leaving only the "servant" behind. The haunting final lines of the song pose a powerful question to the listener: “How could it be that no-one saw her drowning / How did we come to be so unaware / At what point did she cease to be her / When did we cease to look and see her / How is it no-one knew she was there.”
Line by Line Meaning
She walks in the cold dark hour before the morning
She walks in the dawnless dawn
The hour when wounded night begins to bleed
Morning is the birth of day and the death of night
Stands at the back of the patient queue
She stands at the back of the line, waiting dutifully
The silent almost sweeping queue
She stands in a queue where people hardly speak, but just shuffle along
Seein' no-one and not being seen
She sees no one and no one sees her
Working shoes are wrapped in working apron
Her shoes are scuffed and her clothes stained from her work
Rolled in an oilcloth bag across her knees
She carries her work clothes in a bag and rests it on her knees
The swaying tremor soaks the morning
Her swaying as she walks makes her feel the cold of the dawn
Blue grey steely day is dawning
The day is grey and dull
Draining the last few dregs of sleep away
She's up early enough to wake up and go to work, despite a lack of sleep
Over the bridge and the writhing foul black water
She crosses a bridge over polluted, unpleasant water
Down through empty corridors of stone
She walks down empty corridors made of stone, devoid of life
Each of the blind glass walls she passes
She passes by walls of glass that reflect her image
Shows her twin in sudden flashes
The glass reflects her likeness back to her
Which is the mirror image, which is real?
She wonders which is the true image of herself
Crouching hooded gods of word and number?
She imagines gods made of words and numbers watching over her
Accept her bent-backed homage as their due
She feels as though her work is worship to the gods of numbers and words
The buckets steam like incense coils
The steam coming from the cleaning solution looks like incense burning
Around the endless floor she toils
She works tirelessly on the same floor every day
Cleaning the same white sweep each day anew
Every day, she cleans the same white floor, starting again from the beginning
Glistening sheen of new-washed floors is fading
The floors she just cleaned are getting dirty again
There where office clocks are marking time
She cleans in an office where the clocks mark the minutes of the day
Night's black tide has ebbed away
The darkness of the night is being replaced by daylight
By cliffs of glass awash with day
She watches the glass buildings come alive as the day begins
She hurries from her labours still unseen
She finishes her work and leaves, unnoticed by her colleagues
He who lies besides her does not see her
Her partner, sleeping beside her, doesn't fully understand her struggles
Nor does the child who once lay at her breast
Her child, no longer breastfed, also doesn't see the difficult life she leads
The shroud of self-denial covers
She hides her struggles behind a facade of strength and resilience
Eager girl and tender lover
She was once an eager girl and a tender lover, but that person is gone now
Only the faded servant now is left
She is now just a servant, faded and worn from the struggles of her life
How could it be that no-one saw her drowning
Her suffering was not noticed until it was too late
How did we come to be so unaware
We've become so consumed by our own lives that we've forgotten to look around us
At what point did she cease to be her
At some point, she lost her true self
When did we cease to look and see her
We stopped paying attention to her and her struggles
How is it no-one knew she was there
She was invisible to the world around her, unnoticed until it was too late
Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
Written by: EWAN MACCOLL
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Steven Christian Amendola
on There's Cauld Kale in Aberdeen
There's cauld kail in Aberdeen,
And custocks in Stra'bogie,
Where ilka lad maun ha'e his lass,
But I maun ha'e my cogie.
For I maun ha'e my cogie, Sirs,
I canna want my cogie;
I wadna gi'e my three-gir'd cog
For a' the wives in Bogie.
Johnny Smith has got a wife
Wha scrimps him o' his cogie:
But were she mine, upon my life,
I'd dook her in a bogie.
For I maun ha'e my cogie, sirs,
I canna want my cogie;
I wadna gi'e my three-gir'd cog
For a' the wives in Bogie.
These are the lyrics of these two verses on WikiSource. I'm not entirely fluent in Scots so I'm not sure if Ewan Maccoll's delivery of the last line in either verse is here consistent with this text, especially as Maccoll also says "Then fie, gi'e me my cogie" rather than "But I maun ha'e my cogie." I can't quite hear what he actually says in the last line.