Talk:Ewan MacColl

Expansion

I've expanded and corrected the entry. Only removal was the George Bernard Shaw quotation. The version on the previous entry was, I'm pretty certain, incorrect and I'll need to check my sources before I can re insert the correct version (and circumstance). MichaelW 13:35, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

This page doesn't seem to be accessible from the category 'British folk singers'. Can someone fix this, or even better set up the more appropriate category 'English folk singers' Johncmullen1960 06:53, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

According to JOAN'S BOOK, by Joan Littlewood, Ewan MacColl was arrested, had his beard forcibly shaved, and was apparently interrogated after he went AWOL. It doesn't clarify exactly why he didn't end up serving a sentence, but there is the strong suggestion that MacColl suffered some sort of psychiatric breakdown while in custody. The book also suggests that desertion among British troops stationed in the UK during the war was apparently a common occurrence, and not that difficult to do(since all the deserter would have to do was basically walk off the base and make his way home, a trip that wouldn't take long from any point in mainland Britain).

Ken Burch 12:26 am, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

No suggestion there his beard was forcibly shaved - says it was gone before the cops took him away. He then spent several months under arrest and only avoided court martial because of a psychiatrist's report. That put his case under the discretion of his CO and Joan says they had been told if it came to that he would probably have to do 30 days in the glasshouse.

Ben Harker's biography is to be published in October. We'll just have to wait until then and see what he's been able to dig up. MichaelW 21:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Discography

...can we have one?

-- TimNelson (talk) 04:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Nationality

Let's have a bit of early morn controversy. Ewan MacColl was born in Salford in England of Scottish parents. He later lived in London. At no point in his life was he resident in Scotland. He may have wanted to be Scottish, and substituted his mum's birthplace for his own on occasion, but that doesn't make him Scottish. We don't have internal passports here in the UK and so birthplace and residence are the sole rational criteria for nationality. I'm not a Londoner because both my parents were born there. Jimmie Miller was born and grew up in Salford. That makes him English in my book. If you look through his songbook you won't find a dominance of material of Scottish origin. So IMO all this English/Scottish Scottish/English defining is splitting imaginary hairs. Away with it. MichaelW (talk) 10:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree, although obviously the whole English / Scottish / British thing is a little contentious with some Scots. My dad was born in Cardiff to English parents, but that doesn't make him Welsh. Cryomaniac (talk) 19:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I found a reliable source that says he's Scottish: Dylan: A Biography, by Bob Spitz, page 312. And as we all know on Wikipedia, that's more important than actual facts.Ma^t_chups 17:47, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

To an American rock writer anyone who changes his name to MacSomething is Scottish. Did EMac ever live in Scotland? attend school in Scotland? grow up with Scottish pals? George Gershwin is not a Ukrainian composer though his parents were born there. Best to stick to the facts: born in England of Scottish parents. Burraron (talk) 08:47, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

According to the liner notes from the Phil Ochs album "I ain't marching any more": "The State Department has the nasty habit of blocking the entrance of Ewan MacColl into this country." Details on this fact would be welcome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.217.149.46 (talk) 04:52, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

It was a long-standing policy to forbid Communists from entering the USA. MacColl was not just your garden-variety commie twat, he actually wrote songs praising Stalin and the Soviets. He may have written some good songs, but fuck him. 2601:647:4F00:1AC8:740A:C6A7:2DA7:9ABB (talk) 01:43, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Ewan MacColl/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

The bulk of the content is a good account of most of his life and career however he was very significant as a folk song collector. In his later years he remained politically active and there must be more to say about that: also Kirsty was not his only child but she has notability of her own.----Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 00:22, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 00:22, 2 April 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 14:50, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

MacColl the Polygamist?

Reading this sentence

He was married three times: to theatre director Joan Littlewood (1914-2002); to Jean Mary Newlove (1923-2017),[15] with whom he had two children, a son Hamish, and a daughter, the singer/songwriter Kirsty MacColl (1959-2000); and to American folksinger Peggy Seeger (1935- ), with whom he had three children, Kitty, Calum and Neill.

it's not unreasonable for someone to get the impression that from 1959 until his death, he was married to three women. Perhaps someone who actually cares about this guy can improve this section. Unschool 03:17, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Change of name

When did he change his birth name, and why? Headhitter (talk) 18:47, 14 February 2021 (UTC)