The Town I Loved So Well

The Story Behind The Song

Phil Coulter’s early chart success was a far cry from the gritty gas-yard playground of his childhood, described in his autobiographical song ‘The Town I Loved so Well’. Having studied music at Queen's University Belfast, he made his mark as the go-to arranger and songwriter for London music publisher Denmark Street, working with big-name acts, including Van Morrison, Jerry Lee Lewis and Tom Jones. As a songwriting star, he continued his ascension to the top table through his partnership with Bill Martin, which formed in 1965. Together, they co-wrote Eurovision hits including Sandie Shaw's ‘Puppet on a String’, which won the contest for the UK in 1967; and Cliff Richard’s ‘Congratulations’ (which placed second in 1968); and they enjoyed chart success on both sides of the Atlantic, working with acts including the Bay City Rollers (‘Shang-A-Lang’) and even Elvis Presley (‘My Boy’). 

Coulter later recounted that he became increasingly jaded by the commercial hit-making machine – and so he returned to Irish folk when The Dubliners’ Luke Kelly urged him to write songs with more depth. He did so first on the emotionally-charged ‘Scorn Not his Simplicity’, written about Coulter’s son, Paul, who had Down Syndrome and died aged just four in 1969. “I wanted to say, ‘This happened to me and rather than hiding it away or hiding the child away, I’m not ashamed’,” he told The Irish Times. The song, famously sung by Luke Kelly, appeared on The Dubliners’ 1970 LP Revolution. 

In the early 70s, Coulter built a reputation as a solid gold Irish folk producer, working with acts including Planxty and The Furey Brothers. Meanwhile, he continued to work with The Dubliners, writing, co-writing and arranging many of the tracks on Plain and Simple (1973). It was with the encouragement of Kelly that Coulter explored his relationship with his native city in ‘The Town I Loved So Well’.

The track brought Coulter back to his roots, painting a gritty picture of his childhood in Derry, a city plagued at the time by high unemployment, political violence and the blunt instrument of internment. Speaking to The Irish Times, Coulter has said: “It was part of your bread and butter in Derry. I think it was Brian Friel once said, ‘They tried to persuade [Catholics] of our limitations, that we were the hewers of wood and the drawers of water’. So, for those of us then who managed to get our heads above the parapet, there was a particular kind of satisfaction.” 

It’s fitting that what Coulter regards as his masterpiece is an ode to the city of Derry, given this is where he first fell in love with music. His dad played the fiddle and singsongs were a regular occurrence. “It was a point of pride that everyone could stand up and sing a song and do their party piece,” he said. “I’d listen outside the door.” 

He added: “There was great unemployment in Derry, and one of the ways guys could pick up a few bob was by playing in a band. During the war years, the army, the navy and the US air force were all stationed in and around Derry, and so there would have been opportunities for bands to play at dances.” 

In a divided city, Coulter also saw music as a great equaliser. “It was the one job that when you turned up for the interview the first question was not, ‘What school did you go to?’ which was code for, ‘Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?’ This was one bit of employment where it didn’t matter. If you could play the trumpet, you got the gig. [Someone] would call Willie Duffy the barman in the Rocking Chair to say, ‘I need a four-piece band for next Friday night,’ and he’d call out ‘Friday night who’s free?’ It was kind of a labour exchange….” 

He nods to that more innocent musical era in the lyric of ‘The Town I Loved So Well’, remembering “When I played in a small pickup band.” 

“You couldn’t throw a stone in Derry without hitting a showband then, before stone-throwing became the popular art form it was later to become,” Coulter has said.

Derry’s most famous hero and ‘architect of the peace process’, the late John Hume, was said to have loved the song and what it says about the people of Derry: that "They will not forget but their hearts are set / on tomorrow and peace once again." As Hume was laid to rest, in his home city in August 2020, a sublime instrumental version of the song, played by Coulter on the piano, accompanied the coffin from St Eugene’s Cathedral in Derry. More recently, the song made headlines again when Republic of Ireland international footballer James McClean had the song’s lyrics tattooed on his thigh. Proof indeed that, in the form of this song, Phil Coulter’s legacy will surely live on...