It's derby day and I'm in New York so what better day to post adopted-New-Yorker Bob Dylan singing Liverpool folk song "Johnny Todd," better known as the the Z-Cars theme tune that will welcome the two teams onto the Goodison pitch for the final time this evening.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXjd...

Great photo of Liverpool under moody skies as seen from the steps of the museum by the photographer Edward Chambré Hardman (1898–1988). Hardman was born in Dublin but spent most of his life in Liverpool, living and working at 59 Rodney Street.

Just listening to this lovely record by Michael Head and wondering if there is any other songwriter who makes so many references to places in Liverpool? In this tune he sings, "I used to visit Keith's when I lived on the Lane / But then we all realised Thatcher was insane...."

"Of all the seaports in the world, Liverpool, perhaps, most abounds in the...land-sharks, land-rats and other vermin, which make the hapless mariner their prey... And yet, sailors love this Liverpool and upon long voyages to distant parts of the globe, will be continually dilating upon its charms."

Front cover of the Real Thing's 1977 album "4 from 8" referencing the four band members having grown up in L8. After a massive hit with "You to Me Are Everything", the band focused on more socially conscious material on this record with "Liverpool 8", "Children of the Ghetto" and "Stanhope Street".

One of my favourite images of an imaginary Liverpool—a postcard showing Edwin Lutyens' design for the Catholic cathedral. The colossal classical/Byzantine edifice, often called the greatest building never built, would have taken 200 years to complete and been the second-largest church in the world.

Marking the start of winter, here's a snowy scene in the painting "St Mark's Liverpool" by the Scouse artist Brian "Braaq" Shields (1951-97). Shields frequently referenced his hometown in his work, although despite its title this doesn't really look like Liverpool to me - maybe an imagined version?

Marking the 1st anniversary of the death of Shane MacGowan (1957-2023), today's Liverpool cultural reference is the Pogues' version of "The Leaving of Liverpool", a folk song that was collected from a retired American sailor in New York in the 1930s who had learned it from a Scouse sailor c.1885.

Fabulous representation of Liverpool (and the Wirral) by the Singh Twins in their painting "Indian Summer". The twins, Amrit and Rabindra Kaur Singh, were born in Surrey in 1966 but raised in Birkenhead and feature Liverpool and the Wirral in many of their paintings.

This 1680 painting of Liverpool by an unknown artist is the oldest in the Maritime Museum's collection. You can see an older version of St Nicholas's church (on the left), Water Street (in the middle) and the long-gone castle (on the right), which obviously lives on in the name of Castle Street.

I first heard this tale of Irish immigration in the version by the Dubliners, sung by Luke Kelly (1940-84). But I thought I'd share this very different but also great version by the contemporary Irish folk group Lankum. The Liverpool reference comes during a brawl in the final verse.

"Catharine and Huskisson" by the Wirralian singer-songwriter Bill Ryder-Jones (born 1983 in Warrington). The song obviously references two of the streets in Liverpool's Georgian Quarter. Bill Ryder-Jones is playing at the Liverpool Philharmonic tonight with Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals.

"Liverpool Disappears for a Billionth of a Second" by Paul Farley (born Liverpool, 1965) from the collection "Tramp in Flames" (Picador, 2006).