The Pogues: Classic or Dud

there isn't a 'pick only one' for them yet as far as i can tell so
i'll start and say 'waxie's dargle'.
'thousands are sailing' also killa.

(Shane was once so wasted during a gig at a festival (i don't remember which, a dutch or belgian one it was) it was almost too painfull to watch... he forgot about the cigarette he was smoking and the lyrics he was singing, just blabbering on. Until someone came from backstage to walk him off stage, supporting him like one supports an old man across the street (only to find out that he actually didn't want to...). The guitarist (clearly fed up with the situation) took over on vocals and they rushed their way through the set)

POO is impossible but i'll say 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' because my girlfriend's in the video! (and it's a classic video too)

I've seen a lot bands over the years, and a lot of them were really good. Really really good. Some were stunning and a few have left my jaw hanging open. Then there's The Pogues. 1987. Hollywood Palladium. The Pogues guitarist was missing for the tour - Joe Strummer was filling in.

Holy cow folks... Calling it a mere show doesn't really begin to describe the malestrom pouring off the stage. A band of desperates who clearly didn't give a fuck about anything but yet somehow channeled that all that unhinged abandon into some spectacular intense playing. I really had no previous experience to compare it to - maybe the final shootout in The Wild Bunch or something. My ass was kicked.

The funny thing was that The Pogues were the opening band that night. The headliners were Los Lobos and this night was their first LA show since "La Bamba" went #1. Los Lobos were indeed great, but one of the first thing Cesar Rosas says is "we''d like to thank The Pogues for kicking our ass tonight".

"Boys from the County Hell", "Streams of Whiskey" and "Transmetropolitan" are three of the most rip-roaring songs I've ever heard, and when you compare them to beautiful songs like "A Rainy Night in Soho", "Misty Morning, Albert Bridge", "Fairytale of New York" and "Thousands are Sailing", the guy is a total all-round genius.

I'm SUCH a Pogues fan, I even like that albuim without Shane - Waiting For Herb. Heavy nostalgia / ex girl moves for me on that one tho, so no foul

"By the way, if you are a Pogues fan living in Glasgow, Newcastle, Birmingham,Manchester, London or Dublin and are hoping to see (the 1987-1990 line up of)The Pogues one last time, December 13 through to December 23 (2004) would be a really bad time to leave town."

The Pogues Reunion 2004

13.12.2004 - Glasgow Academy
14.12.2004 - Glasgow Academy
16.12.2004 - Newcastle Arena
17.12.2004 - Birmingham Academy
18.12.2004 - Manchester Evening News Arena
20.12.2004 - London Brixton Academy
21.12.2004 - London Brixton Academy
23.12.2004 - Dublin Point (MCD)

Ah hell, who am I kidding? Classic for Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, the finest record I own with the name "Elvis Costello" on it.

BTW, I too saw Joe Strummer playing with the Pogues (Detroit, '87) during the same tour that Chris mentioned upthread, and everything he says about that show was right on. As far as I can remember...

(They did "London Calling"! Sounded GREAT!)

The Joe Strummer tour was reviewed in one of the UK weekly mags with the classic headline "Rum, Sodomy and The Clash".

My book here says it's Shane McGowan's birthday today. He's 50 years old.

Happy christmas yer arse.

Last night he was on Harry Hill's TV Burp singing Fairytale of New York with a beluga whale.

Shouldn't this topic be "Classic or Drunk"?

It is astounding that Shane MacGowan is still alive but Kirsty MacColl is dead.

And I think he will be touring with the Pogues in America in March 2008

"ferried around america with the pogues" might be a better construction. but he made 50, that's an achievement. the man's liver gives hope to us all. really all his organs deserve respect.

Will someone please, please, please tell me who the woman is singing on this. I don't believe it's Kirsty MacColl. Please. Is this on a Pogues album? It's a b-side isn't it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN-8JpgmA0s

Sounds like Belinda Carlisle but it's probably Cait O'Riordan.

that's Cait O'Riordan, who used to play bass for the Pogues until Daryl Hunt took over from "If I Should Fall..." Unfortunately, she married Elvis Costello after he produced "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash."

That song was written by Shane MacGowan but it's on the Sid and Nancy soundtrack. It's also on the excellent Pogues box set that just came out.

incidentally, MONUMENTAL CLASSIC. That box set kicks fucking ass.

also a great version of that song with sinead o'connor on shane's first solo album.

It was a single in its own right as well. As tipsy says, there's a version on "The Snake" as well featuring Sinead O'Connor.

Sinead O'Connor version is not as good, IMHO. And his solo version of "Rake at the Gates of Hell" is fucking terrible compared to the original. But, shockingly, he made another amazing Christmas song after he went solo. It's called "Christmas Lullaby" and unbelievably, it's nearly as good as "Fairytale of New York." That song was on a limited edition single only, alas.

i sort of prefer the sinead version, it's more wistful and draws out the melody more. both are great though. "you looked so cool you could have put out vietnam" is one of my favorite shane lines.

here's the video to the album version of shane/sinead. (produced by trevor horn!)

Thanks ILM!!!!!!!!!

obligatory st paddy's day pogues video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TejJDFt6Tkk&feature=related

and now I am lying here and I've had too much booze

xmas eve in the drunk tank

TOO EARLY

(<3)

i'm sad to say, i must be on me way
So buy me beer and whiskey cos I'm goin far away

Still one of the best live shows I've attended was the Pogues along with Joe Strummer back in 1988 or so. Listen to 'em less than I used to, but still got a place in my heart for RUM, and even for HELL'S DITCH.

James Fearnley has written an AMAZING memoir about his time with the Pogues. I pretty much read it start to finish nonstop today. He's a phenomenally good writer, and boy does it tell a good story.

http://www.amazon.com/Here-Comes-Everybody-Pogues-ebook/dp/B007Q25LBI/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345612229&sr=8-1-fkmr1&keywords=here+comes+everyone+fearnley

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/06_01/poguesMS0206_468x370.jpg

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/06_01/poguesMS0206_468x370.jpg

That picture is, sadly, both classic and dud.

Nice homburg, tho

That, my friends, is the face of a man who has lived life on his own terms.

http://i.imgur.com/8FLJn.jpg

it's amazing what a set of dentures can do.

With the teeth in he looks like Steve Coogan on a bender.

Anyone read this?
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51BByiRCCvL._SS500_.jpg

My book here says it's Shane McGowan's birthday today. He's 50 years old.

― Bimble, Wednesday, December 26, 2007 12:11 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like to think Bimble had a book with every musician's birthday in it and he'd finish off each day by looking through it and choosing to whom he'd wish a happy birthday.

I was going to get that book, but haven't yet. You can read sections of it on Amazon. What I read of it, it seemed somewhat academic to me. The author also wrote a positive review on Amazon for James Fearnley's (Pogues accordion player) book.

Sad news:

http://www.rte.ie/ten/news/2013/1008/479139-pogues-member-phil-chevron-has-died/

At least it was peaceful...

:(

RIP. As Joe Strummer noted, he was great at that insanely fast Irish triple-time strumming thing.

He wrote "Lorelei" and "Thousands are Sailing," two of the best Pogues tracks (power ballads?). Sad,

Yeah, I love both of those. R.I.P.

RIP

It's rare that "Thousands are Sailing" doesn't make me cry. I cannot sing along with it without my voice shaking.

oh wow, RIP.

aren't they doing some gigs coming up?

yeap: http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2013/09/24/pogues-tour-dates-rum-sodomy-lash/

Dec. 15: O2 Apollo, Manchester, UK
Dec. 17: O2 Academy, Glasgow, UK
Dec. 19: O2 Academy Brixton, London, UK
Dec. 20: O2 Academy Brixton, London, UK

Anyone pick up the new 30 Years box set? I really want to hear the remixes of Red Roses For Me and especially Lilywhite's new Peace and Love. The inclusion of a Strummer set from December '91 is a nice bonus.

Huh. Didn't know about that. So it's just the albums, no bonus tracks, plus that live set and two remixed albums?

yup. I don't want to buy all the records - I have last decade's expanded reissues - but I'd love to pick up the remixes. Heck, I'd be okay with streaming them legally but can't find a place to do so.

Ha:

Step 1: take 7 albums; sell
Step 2: make compilation; sell again
Step 3: add bonus tracks; sell again
Step 4: make another compilation; sell again
Step 5: remove bonus tracks; sell again
Step 6: make another compilation; sell again
Step 7: repackage in boxset; sell again
Step 8: make another compilation; sell again
Step 9: remix two, add live album, repackage in different boxset; sell again
Step 10: go to 1

sad but true. I can't see myself springing for a third time on pogues cds. Though I've never owned the two post-Hell's Ditch records.

I've only ever owned "The Best Of" and "The Rest Of", which I love. I'm going to pick up the Rhino editions of the first 3 and possibly the "Just Look Them Straight In The Eye And Say Pogue Mahone" odds and ends box set. There's not much discussion about that box - thoughts?

I love the "Pogue Mahone" box set, but it's obviously only for the most rabid fans. The highlight for me is the stark version of "The Auld Triangle" from the John Peel show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RousyTQB6iY

The new "30 Years" box set seems pretty pointless to me, since it doesn't include any bonus tracks and leaves out entirely the great "Poguetry in Motion" EP. The remastered CDs have all the extras, including that EP.

New mixes and a live disc. Not enough for me. Need to pick up the Pogue Mohone box though.

leaves out entirely the great "Poguetry in Motion" EP

!!! that is crazy

One last Pogues mention for today. For my bachelor party, a bunch of my friends rented an orange van (we looked like escapees from a mental hospital), put a keg in the back and started driving from Rhode Island to Boston. The whole way up they were threatening to take me to strip joints in the Combat Zone, which is the last thing I wanted to do. We parked, walked around a bit and then turned a corner to see a giant sign all lit up: "Tonight Only: The Pogues." What a relief! This was the 1991 tour, when Joe Strummer was fronting the band, so we heard "London Calling" and "I Fought the Law" among the usual fare. Then we headed over to Tower Records (long since gone), where I dropped over a hundred bucks. What a great night.

Roots geek here. Just wanted to rep for the boxset. It's tempting to dismiss it because they've been doing useless annual best-ofs for so long, but it's pretty great. Notes:

Red Roses For Me sounds much better. Vocals have a lot more clarity, and the low end has been cranked way up. You notice immediately.

Peace and Love is a new album. It's totally different now. Instrumental parts you didn't know existed, vocals mixed so differently they don't sound like the same take. Harmonies that weren't there. Really made me reevaluate it. Still hit or miss obviously, but I like it a lot more now.

The Strummer live album should have been sold by itself. It's one of the coolest things in their catalogue, and they've been talking about putting it out for a decade. I don't know why it's buried in something that looks like a greatest hits. Strummer brings huge energy to the proceedings, and outsings MacGowan on the Hell's Ditch stuff. It's great hearing him sing If I Should Fall From Grace, a song that he clearly loves. And his electric rhythm is all over the place, which I dig.

The Strummer live album should have been sold by itself.

Along with the remixed "Red Roses" and "Peace and Love." Rather than included in a boxed set as "exclusives."

Curious about "Peace and Love," which I've always listened to as much as any Pogues. I never thought it sounded bad and in fact really liked how it was recorded. Still, intriguing tidbits:

STEVE LILLYWHITE: “I made a mistake with Peace And Love in mixing his voice quietly, which made a weak vocal worse. If I’d turned it up, I could’ve made a weak vocal better. I should apologise to him for that. I feel it could’ve been a much better album if the vocals, even if they were weak, had been louder in the mix. Quite often he would slur his voice a lot, so I would actually move the voice forwards in the track. Now you can do it really easily. In those days, it was quite a big job. I did that on a couple of tracks to try and get his voice more in the right place.”

JEM FINER:“... too much cocaine ... definitely had an effect on [Peace & Love]. I’ve always hated cocaine, and I think it’s responsible for a lot of rubbish that happened round the band. People often turn into complete arseholes – not always, but creative ideas fuelled by cocaine are often just shit. That probably is a problem. There was a lot of over-indulgence, musically. Things became over-complicated …. Everyone wanting their stuff to be heard. The collective ego of the band got fragmented into individual egos. I found it really, really tedious and frustrating and disheartening... ‘USA’ is a case in point of sheer over-indulgence. I’ve got some tapes somewhere of mixes of that that are just incredible where it’s quite sparse. It had this amazing, brooding menace to it, and that sort of got lost. People kept overdubbing stuff more and more and it just lost a lot of its power.”

PHILIP CHEVRON: It has to be said that Shane - indeed, the whole band - was in better shape when we recorded the demos than when we cut the album. By then, disillusion, not to mention various drug cocktails, had set in. We gave Lillywhite an uphill battle from the very beginning. Steve probably made the best choices he could at the time in respect of how to disguise/flatter/enhance/obscure the lead vocals, but he is, I think, right to concede, 20 years later, that there was probably a better way around the problem. Oddly enough, with success there appears to come some unspoken additional pressure from the record company to make records a certain way, with a particular sound etc, and in the event, Steve was trying to make the record as much for the Brothers Warner in the UK and Island Records in the USA as for The Pogues. In an ideal world, these are not incompatible goals, as the previous album proves, but I think this one collapsed as under the weight of expectation as much as it suffered from our own flawed humanity, and it ended up representing the best interests of no one. Amazing it's still a great album, however flawed. What else was there that month, the new Rick Astley?

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-wire-creator-is-penning-a-musical-based-on-the-pogues-music-20131226

Wow, aspects of the new Peace & Love are revelatory.

Huh I always liked the album, barring a couple tracks. It is sprawling and dense and more wide ranging than their others but whats wrong w that

New version worth a listen. Same album, but enough is shifted around to make a difference. Wonder how Lillywhite felt about mixing down Kirsty MacColl in the new "Lorelei."

On way home passed by a bookstore and saw that James Fearnley was reading from his recent memoir, Here Comes Everybody: The Story of The Pogues. Couldn't stay for the whole thing but he was quite charming, starting of by singing a song in which he name checked a lot of famous Irishmen called something like "The Rock Upon Which We Will Perish" and then reading from the first chapter of the book. Definitely worth a looksee.

Guess this book came out two years ago, at least in the UK. Maybe just got US paperback release.

ah

Fearnley's reading at Skylight Books is on their podcast. Worth listening to for Shane-impersination. Talks Alex Cox.

impersonation. fuck, what is my problem

wheree'r we go we celebrate the land that made us refugees

On a different Pogues thread, I posted about 1 of my last live music nights out before this virus. I saw Spider Stacey and Cait O’riordan do a fun set of Pogues songs plus the Clash’s London Calling backed by youngish Louisiana band Lost Bayou Ramblers. Spider lives in New Orleans now

wow...that sounds amazing!

It was pretty great

looks fantastic

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/crock-of-gold-shane-mcgowan-pogues-trailer-1079178/

hyped for this and the Phil Lynott films. lovely stuff.

Looks good, but I hope it's not just all Shane, all the time. I love that band, but Shane is only part of it.

I responded to a recent mention of the Pogues on the Los Lobos thread, by yammering 'bout how Nancy McCallion and Catherine Zavala beheld an LL-P show in London, then went back to Tucson and started The(Irish-Chicana-folk-rock-country-folk-polka-etc) Mollys---but since then, I was trapped in car where Harry Connick Jr.'s Broadway salute to Cole Porter was blasting okay orchestrations and nerf vox, so I concentrated on mental replays of Kirsty MacColl & The Pogues' "Miss Otis Regrets-->Just One of Those Things," from Red Hot + Blue, the Cole Porter trib. Great album, worthy cause, check the reissue w bonus disc of videos for all tracks. Oh yeah and leave us not forget Kristy and the Ps' "Fairytale of New York."

Kirsty and The Ps, that is!

Pouges have more monthly listeners on Spotify than Led Zeppelin

I could see that in March, but all year round?

Maybe right now, for Christmas?

"Fairy Tale of New York" is just one of the best tunes ever. When they bring back the harmony part with Kristy MacColl...so very lovely. I just don't see how you could do it better.

the Shane/Pogues docu might be a perfect 'staying in on New Year's Eve' movie; i'm about to find out!

So, Crock of Gold, then. Some extremely naive and ill-informed thoughts to follow.
As someone who never really got The Pogues (just turned 42 now, so I was dimly aware of Shane and The Popes in the mid 90s), this doc really did it for me; it enabled to appreciate and understand the context that was sorely lacking in just sticking on the music; how it's London Irish music, informed by Shane's political/national concerns and sensibility, his childhood, etc which the doc thoroughly educated me on. Im sure that long-time Pogues fans will be able to inform me how it undervalues the other bandmembers contributions, or distorts the history, or whatever; for my purposes, it totally transformed my appreciation. The song-length performance clips are dazzling and where exactly what I needed to see. Going back to the records, songs like "A Pair of Brown Eyes", "The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn"* reveal themselves to me completely and feel like some of the best songs ever written. In fact, the whole of the first side Rum is incredible.
I'm taking my time with the rest of the albums, but it feels like a, well crock of goldmine.
Back to the doc, I particularly liked the found footage, and engagement, if sometimes literally cartoonishly, with 20c Irish history. And of course forum favourite Baoby pops up as well. Depp I could have done without, but if that's what it took to get this financed, whatever. And lastly, sorry but I squealed in delight at Shane twice saying he hates "Fairytale", despite his respectful comments about Kirsty. Ive hated that song for years now, or more accurately the media saturation of it, and it put me off the band for god knows how long.
"A Pair of Brown Eyes" though. Jesus, this has instantly become one of my favourite songs, a piece of music I can't imagine being without now.

*Is Shane deliberately doing a "London" pronunciation of this name, or, is it a valid alternative..?

technically it should be more like Coo-Hullin (with the consonant sound in the second syllable pronounced in the same way as the 'ch" in "loch") but a lot of Irish people would pronounce it the way Shane does anyway

The Pogues are massively underrated, imo.

are they? i mean within the universe of "musical acts featuring a founding tin whistle player" their only competition would be the chieftains.

I sort I feel like for a band that good, they haven't passed on to future generations. Kind of like what happened to REM.

I feel the Pogues were an huge and essential group when i was a teen but their legend has waned a lot - one of those bands where it is tricky explaining to younger friends how vital they used to seem - Its not necessarily their “fault” but a lot of the commentary/mythologising around macgowan’s “lifestyle choices” has probably aged pretty poorly? not sure endorsement from johnny depp helps here!

and however inaccurate, perhaps a sense of “roots music” being anathema for a certain type of music fan - maybe too it has not been the moment for the whiskey-soaked romanticism songwriting style (again i am aware this does all of them a disservice) - and their entire diverse catalogue being overshadowed by one song cant help

anyway keen to see this film! and interested to find out if there is room for the pogues in the contemporary moment.

I feel like they're seen as a novelty/kitsch thing now — when I first heard about them (mid to late '80s, when If I Should Fall... was brand new but Red Roses For Me was already something you had to order special from the record store) they were sold to me as "Irish music, but punk, and the shows are amazing," but "Fairytale" and the use of "The Body of an American" in The Wire and the existence of shit like the Dropkick Murphys have combined to reduce them to something you listen to on St. Patrick's Day and that's it.

I'm sure their reach is generationally limited, but among Gen X music nerds at least I don't feel like their place is particularly diminished. I think Shane's rep as a first-rate songwriter and singer is pretty solid.

Hmm. There might be something to a generational aversion to "roots" music, or at least stuff that veers from the standard country/folk derived "Americana" formula. Like, I've noted before how Los Lobos, once revered, at some point sort of just fell off the radar, for no particular good reason, or that all the British folk rock stuff remains pretty cult (at least here), maybe because of all the exotic/stodgy Celtic or whatever elements to it. Bands like the Pogues, or to use the latter example Fairport Convention, stuff like that, I think there's a slight disconnect between what one might read about the groups (it's punk! it's radical! it's a crazy fusion of the modern and ancient!) and what you actually hear, which in the end is pretty traditional stuff.

lol I put on Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, and right on schedule my daughter walked into the room, wrinkled her nose in semi-derision, and asked "what are you listening to, bagpipes?!"

That London Irish thing is not really 'authentic enough to interest hipster folk tastes, so it really comes down to McGowan as a songwriter.

I don't know what London Irish means. Is that just what it sounds like? Anyway in the US at least, Irish-Irish vs London Irish probably isn't the hurdle. Shane is a great songwriter, but sounding Irish at all (penny whistle, etc.) is probably what keeps people at bay, hipsters or no. Honestly, I'm not a fan of thinking of them as Shane N' Friends, anyway, because great songwriter or no I love the playing of the band as a whole, and some of their best stuff is not Shane stuff. That is, I listen to "Peace & Love" as much as any of their albums, and Shane has a writing credit on less than half of the tracks.

I think there's a bit of difficulty disentangling the Pogues from all the horseshit Irish pride mook shit like Dropkick Murphys

they are like Led Zeppelin, amazing band, terrible influence

The perspective in the US will be different I think the concept of the Plastic Paddy might just be too painful to confront/ admit to.

ha I had to Google that phrase, that's a good one

Other kid walked into the room and asked why I was listening to the "Lord of the Rings" soundtrack.

I think there's a bit of difficulty disentangling the Pogues from all the horseshit Irish pride mook shit like Dropkick Murphys

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, April 16, 2021

oh man... i guess i can kinda piece this out intellectually but it just makes no kind of sense.

great acts fade in stature over years all the time (we keep getting older, hot bands stay the same age etc etc) but being forgotten seems far less cruel a fate than being misremembered like this.

anyhoo, thanks for reminding me about the doc. I was cautiously optimistic and then wandered off waiting for it to drop

there's no pain, there's no more sorrow,
they're all gone, gone in the years babe

After a Grateful Dead concert at night I was in this dudes car with my gf. He was going way too fast around curves and had “fiesta” on the stereo

xpost I'm not saying that's what I think wrt the Pogues, I like them a lot, but I just know a lot of people that kind of are like peace out on any Irish type stuff because of...I dunno...Boston I guess

and truly it has very little to do w the Pogues or even actual Ireland

ugh boston

feel like somehow this is down to matt damon and tom brady. has anything worthwhile come out of boston since the cars?

Pixies? Mission of Burma? Marky Mark?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBvkmWDjsYc

lifetime pass for Mission of Burma

Here's hoping the doc does revive the band's rep and influence, then, beyond Fairtyale.

Hey, don't talk shit about Boston! "Worthwhile" is in the eye of the beholder but there's been lots of great stuff from here since The Cars, jeez.

As for The Pogues, love 'em all through Shane's tenure - and the odds and sods box set is the gift that keeps on giving. It's interesting to observe the ups and downs of different music's reputation - old things are constantly rediscovered and made the new hotness, then time moves on again and down it goes in terms of appeal. I'm specifically thinking of the post-punk era and how in the early 00s those bands were name-checked constantly, how it faded in the 10s but it seems to be coming back. At least from my purview.

blame insufferable patritos fans lol

documentary is good btw. i didn't even hate johnny depp.

one thing I did not know: that “streets of sorrow/birmingham six” was treated by the authorities as a “fuck tha police”-level threat to order

oh cool I see this is on Hulu, that's my Saturday night

no interviews of any pogue bandmates was weird and disappointing
I wasn’t crazy about it but some good vintage clips
Poor man is basically nosferatu now, what is his actual ailment? Liver disease? aftermath of stroke?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYY_EaCPGFw

that “streets of sorrow/birmingham six” was treated by the authorities as a “fuck tha police”-level threat to order

Yeah, that came out as the Birmingham Six case was finally working toward eventual exoneration. They were all released in '91. It was a huge political cause.

xpost I'm not saying that's what I think wrt the Pogues, I like them a lot, but I just know a lot of people that kind of are like peace out on any Irish type stuff because of...I dunno...Boston I guess

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, April 16, 2021 10:02 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

and truly it has very little to do w the Pogues or even actual Ireland

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, April 16, 2021 10:05 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

lets not forget the Bennigans, which my partner immediately referenced the first time they heard me put on a Pogues record

"the Bennigans", jfc, idk where that came from

Um, us neither...

ha fair i meant Bennigans the (now defunct i think?) restaurant chain often thrown as a reference for annoying US fake-irishness

https://bennigans.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/BENN_2021SPD_Website_Banner.jpg

Ah.

Thx

I think there's a bit of difficulty disentangling the Pogues from all the horseshit Irish pride mook shit like Dropkick Murphys
Except they don't sound anything alike. I was in Dublin a few years ago and went on a musical pub crawl like all the tourists do. Our hosts —who could really play — absolutely trashed the Dropkick Murphys repeatedly (and justifiably). When the Q&A session came, I nervously asked about Shane and his standing among traditional Irish musicians like themselves. They had nothing but respect for him.

Yes, I know what the Pogues and Dropkick Murphys don't sound alike

guy was probably relieved to have a tourist asking him about literally any band other than the dropkick murphys

@UMS just to clarify, no one thinks you are endorsing this POV! you're just reporting the news :)

watched this, really took me out a bit. obviously it's julien temple so it's got it's quirks but i'd rather his eccentricities than the standard straight to streaming formula music docs of which there are so many.

to the irish discussion, was a great example of what tom d. was talking about wrt plastic paddies in the u.s., the film felt so connected with ireland on so many levels, how deeply shane believed in his irishness, the pain and the hurt and the bloodshed and the poetry and the literature and his ancestors and the countryside itself, all of it. here it's just a dodgy "celtic" tattoo around the bicep of a bouncer and dyed-green beer and green mardi gras beads on st. paddy's day.

it really broke my heart to see him now. just completely slack, no expression, barely upright, methodically downing glass after glass of white wine. he would say things that made sense, sometimes were even funny or insightful, but it's almost like he's trapped in his own body -- some kind of lucid coma.

the parts where the sinn fein leader is talking to him are so uncomfortable. he wants something from shane that just isn't there anymore.

you could see it in the eyes of some of the people he talked to - the woman who was his biographer (i think?) and even ilx's beloved boaby gillespie. saw little moments where he would roll his eyes - "okay what should we talk about then?" after shane tells him to quit interrogating him about moving to london, little sad, knowing flashes in his eyes.

his family history and childhood was gripping. so much hurt and pain and alcohol, just gallons and gallons and gallons. getting fed booze at 6 years old by his aunt, how was he supposed to turn out.

i liked his sister the best, i think she understands him. to have such a gift and such a sensitivity to understanding people - to be able to really *write* that into a song. what a gift. and then to see someone drown that gift, year and year, blot it all out, extinguish whatever talent god had given him. really heartbreaking.

i think it hits a bit closer, because i've always been a social drinker, a fun drunk, i like talking to people. but in the last year sometimes i get the impulse to just deaden everything.

at the end when he says he wishes he could write songs again and play pool. it's so clear that's never going to happen again.

yeah watched this today and all the contemporary bits with him were extremely difficult to watch.
the shots where he would raise a glass to take a drink, it took me a few times to realize that they werent in extreme slow motion, that was just how he moved. crushing to see. would have scared me off drink altogether if i'd seen something like that in my teens.

also fuck johnny depp, what a little sycophant ghoul wannabe he is, found his new hunter s. thompson to cheer on into the grave

yeah i wont soon forget the part he rang that bell and was like "i defy any bastard to shane isnt sharper than the rest of them put together!" or whatever, meanwhile shane is across the table struggling to breathe

the worst

theatrically laughing hysterically at every little thing shane managed to mumble out

i found the parts where he was being interviewed by his own wife...um....interesting?

yeah, no idea whats going on there.

its gonna be on my mind for a while, i can say that for sure. by the end of it all i could think of was the body of work that will never exist, songs he'll never write, poems never published, the memoir we'll never read. in the tribute at the end, it was brutal to watch him barely able to croak out a few lines of "Summer in Siam" next to Nick Cave & knowing theyre the same age.

Still need to see this, but I've always wondered how much of Shane's current state is due strictly to drink and not that in combination with all of the other substances he's ingested over the years.

I haven’t seen it yet either, but tbh the mere fact of a non-dead Shane in 2021 is a bit of an astonishment. I thought he was a goner when he got de-Pogued in the early ‘90s.

He briefly got re-Pogued. At least, I saw the band in ... 2007 (?) with him and they were great.

afaik he never left the reformed band

^ he was in nine years of the original run, fourteen years of the reunion

When the Q&A session came, I nervously asked about Shane and his standing among traditional Irish musicians like themselves. They had nothing but respect for him.

I had a similar experience years ago in Manchester, as a college student. There was an Irish folk-rock band my friends and I used to go see a lot, a real hot-shit group full of "national champion" musicians. We got to know them a bit and had some drinks with them. They had a few Pogues songs in their repertoire, and I was a huge Pogues fan, so I asked the band what they thought of them. First they all laughed about what terrible players most of the guys in the Pogues were. But then their lead singer said something like, "But y'know it doesn't really matter if you can't play when you've got Shane MacGowan's songs." They all nodded.

johnny depp's new irish accent is tied with Bono appearance as the worst thing in this.

I remember Jimmy Tarbuck giving big props to Shane, just ahead of his appearance on a chat show they were both on.

just watched this last night

on the one hand in general Julien Temple drives me up the wall bc his docs are like overdecorated xmas trees

but

Crock of Gold is weirdly beautiful in its way. it‘s sad & stark but maintains the intent of celebrating him with his flaws, & works really well as genuinely sincere reminder of his godgiven talent for music & writing

like it felt like the kind of thing that might be put together about other great poets or writers

him saying if he was handed a full syringe today he’d still shoot it & his biographer’s genuinely shocked reaction (and his rationale “a reward for being a good boy”) - i mean, god if you are looking for a real snapshot of addiction, there it is

the footage of nick cave & shane singing summer of siam together made me bawl

this movie, whoa. what a story. reliable narrator crisis. or not? i think the crisis is only in my head.

yeah with Shane who fuckin knows

i love the moment when MacGowan is talking to Bobby Gillespie about the coronet solo in Fairytale of New York & he says “you know it right” and Gillspie looks at him SON blankly to the point where clear that he doesnt but also it’s unclear if Gillespie even knows that Fairytale is a song, a Pogues song, what even is a song or who is this person talking to me rn

*SO not SON oops

when Shane says quit interrogating me and Bobby half rolls his eyes and says "well what do you want to talk about?" is priceless

yes that was gold

I was more shocked by Shane's condition in a BBC documentary made ten (15? 20?) years ago. There are clips of it in Crock of Gold: in one memorable bit Shane gets lost in a pub, wandering out from the bar into the corridor and keeps shouting "Where's the pub? Where's the pub?" That was a real wrencher, but having seen it, he didn't seem too bad in this one.

What's Bobby Gillespie doing in this anyway?

Lol, seriously. What the fuck does he have to do with this story? Save it for the Stuart Adamson (RIP) doc.

We started this last night. It's really good (sad) so far, but we were wondering if Shane had had a stroke. I guess it turns out that in 2015 he suffered a fall in the studio and injured his pelvis. I'm assuming he blew off medical advice to take it easy or whatever. Hence the wheelchair.

Pretty sure Irish folk music is not a genre Primal Scream have latched on to yet. Unless someone knows better.

yeah I don't know, he just kind of shows up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceMxRE6ViIQ

I'd say him and Shane are just "mates" in the same way he and Depp are

Gaun yersel' Boab!

I read it as an attempt to have Shane interviewed not by traditional interviewer / documentarian types, but by different-yet-complementary cultural figures.

Having, say, Bob Dylan interview him would have been a surprising choice, but we as the audience wouldn't be any more enlightened or informed

And (not to be That Guy) but the cornet solo in question is from "A Rainy Night in Soho."

I point this out only because one could make a little doggerel about how (in McGowan's telling) he fired Elvis Co. for wanting an oboe solo on "Soho" and he said "No. Go."

ahh thx curse my bad memory

I was reading a bit & Temple decided since MacGowan is a pretty ornery interview in general, that to get a variety of conversations he’d gather friends/famous fans/ people he’s sat down & talked to before

i suppose in lieu of footage of macgowan telling temple to fuck off repeatedly

which … doesnt sound like the worst idea …

Rainy nights and fairy tales.

Underrated band. So many great songs.

Still need to read Here Comes Everyone

Someone loaned me that book and I read it despite never having heard a Pogues album. Fearnley is a good writer who, for some reason, has a tic of saying "I lifted my accordion into the air and shook it as the song's final chords crashed to a halt" every time he describes their stage show. I was amazed upon finishing the book to learn that Shane MacGowan was neither dead nor institutionalized. There are interesting appearance from Costello and Strummer too, including the story of how Fearnley would up marrying the latter's girlfriend.

Oh, it's Here Comes Everybody, a Joyce reference.

Yeah, sorry I misstyped.

been listening to Rum, Sodomy & the Lash for the first time in forever, how'd I go without "A Pair of Brown Eyes" for so long?

Also: "Navigator"

a pair of brown eyes is incredible - one of my alltime favorites

more beautiful and desolate than a Hank Williams song imo:

So drunk to hell I left the place
Sometimes crawling sometimes walking
A hungry sound came across the breeze
So I gave the walls a talking
And I heard the sounds of long ago
From the old canal
And the birds were whistling in the trees
Where the wind was gently laughing

That James Fearnley memoir was really good.
I really regret not getting to see them when I was hearing about them in the early days

Funnily enough I looked at the new Cat Power covers album in the shop today and the only thing that piqued my interest was that it includes A Pair Of Brown Eyes.

I've since listened to it and it's rather aimless

Growing up in Ireland, I used to see Ray Lynam and Philomena Begley albums in the shops all the time. That Country n Irish genre was on a different planet to my own tastes

I've since listened to it and it's rather aimless

It's a Cat Power album.

Yes. That's why I didn't remotely consider buying it.

This is brilliant and excruciating and funny and sad all at the same time....when @shattenstone met Shane MacGowan at home in Dublin. https://t.co/lHg2HtScZU

— Donald McRae (@donaldgmcrae) April 4, 2022

I feel like I've read several of these Simon Hattenstone I-interviewed-a-star-and-they-didn't-make-it-easy-for-me interviews. I think he did a similar one with Lou Reed. He certainly has a line in moronic questions though - what are your favourite songs, did living in London make you feel more Irish - I mean no wonder his interviewees turn surly...

"Dublin, here I come!", "MacGowan Mansions"...I find that typical Guardian jokey-without-being-actually-funny style unreadable

Desperately trying to work out who he reminds me off in that photo.

https://res.cloudinary.com/uktv/image/upload/v1512565649/oiqhiwkpev8mpzebhv5v.jpg

XP - He's an exact mix of Fred Armisen and Limmy

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/28/arts/music/shane-macgowan.html

This december 2021 NY Times piece by a freelancer didn't add too much

Oddly enough, I dreamed about Phil Chevron last night. I was as sad in my dream as I am in waking life that he is gone. I feel incredibly fortunate to have seen the band while he was still alive.

Oh, and the Pogues are an absolute fucking classic, at least for 3 1/2 albums.

They’re great, he’s great, that was boring, but he’s really—quite boring now? Not bad, often correct, just not v interesting. His wife seems more interesting really. Interviewer 🙄.

I only saw the Pogues once and it was without McGowan, Spider Stacey was handling vocals. It was still a great show.

I saw them with Shane in 2009, he was surprisingly coherent and the show was magnificent.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-pogues/2009/tabernacle-atlanta-ga-13d6c9e5.html

They’re great, he’s great, that was boring, but he’s really—quite boring now? Not bad, often correct, just not v interesting. His wife seems more interesting really.

Years ago I read the book they did together -- A Drink with Shane MacGowan -- and I remember it being really enjoyable.

was there a different version of "Rainy Night in Soho" on the US version of Poguetry in Motion? I don't remember the arrangement being so treacly as the version that's on spotify.

True that Temple's docs can be xpost overdecorated, but/and I enjoyed his Strummer one and will check this too, thanks for posting. Speaking of Strummer as yall were anyway, here's this from Rolling Reissues 2022:

Out Now
DARK HORSE RECORDS RELEASES JOE STRUMMER 002:
THE MESCALEROS YEARS FEATURING NEVER-BEFORE-HEARD TRACKS

FIRST-EVER COMPREHENSIVE COLLECTION OF STRUMMER’S WORK WITH HIS BAND THE MESCALEROS

NEW BOX SET INCLUDES PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED TRACKS INCLUDING THE NEWLY DISCOVERED COVER OF “SECRET AGENT MAN”, “FANTASTIC”, & “OCEAN OF DREAMS”, FEATURING STEVE JONES FROM THE SEX PISTOLS, ALONGSIDE REMASTERED EDITIONS OF THE COMPLETE MESCALEROS CATALOG, EXCLUSIVE NEW INTERVIEWS, NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN IMAGES, AND MUCH MORE

JOE STRUMMER 002: THE MESCALEROS YEARS

OUT NOW VIA DARK HORSE RECORDS

If you think you miss Joe Strummer now, by the time you get to the end of this boxset, you are really going to miss the guy. What an impact, what an amazing musician, what an amazing human being, a great artist, and this boxset perfectly captures the man, the music and the moment, I’m so glad this came out.

–HENRY ROLLINS

Today Dark Horse Records releases Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years, the first-ever comprehensive collection highlighting Strummer’s work with his post-Clash band, The Mescaleros. The collection includes remastered editions of all three of the band’s studio albums, plus 15 rare and unreleased tracks spanning the first demos Joe wrote for the Mescaleros, as well as the previously unheard cover of ‘Secret Agent Man’ from 2002 that was discovered in the Joe Strummer archives and was identified as one of the last songs he recorded, along with other unreleased tracks including ‘Fantastic’ and ‘Ocean Of Dreams’, featuring Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols on guitar, as well outtakes from Joe’s final sessions with the Mescaleros. This richly curated boxset was executive produced by Joe’s widow Lucinda Tait and produced by David Zonshine and features exclusive new interviews with Joe’s friends, collaborators and Mescaleros band mates, plus never-before-seen handwritten notes, lyrics, and drawings by Strummer taken from the Joe Strummer Archive. The release arrives everywhere today on 4 CD w/72-page book and 7 LP w/32-page book, special edition packaging and exclusive 12”x12” art print.

While best known as the front man for The Clash, Strummer produced some of the most exciting work of his career with The Mescaleros. “All that’s happening for me now is just a chancer’s bluff,” Strummer said during this period. “I learned that fame is an illusion and everything about it is just a joke. I’m far more dangerous now, because I don’t care at all.”

Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years highlights this intense period of creativity from 1999-2002, collecting for the first time such extraordinary albums as Rock Art and the X-Ray Style (1999), Global A Go-Go (2001), and the posthumous Streetcore (2003), along with Vibes Compass, a brand-new compilation of 15 B-sides and rarities, spanning early demos of some of the first tracks Strummer wrote for The Mescaleros (such as “The Road To Rock ‘N’ Roll,” “X-Ray Style,” and “Techno D-Day,” as well as the previously unreleased “Secret Agent Man”) to the original recordings from Joe’s last ever sessions, including outtakes of “Get Down Moses,” “Coma Girl,” and the never-before-heard new song, “Fantastic.” All albums are remastered by three-time GRAMMY® Award-winning engineer Paul Hicks (The Beatles, John Lennon, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie) especially for the release and are packaged with extensive new liner notes, unreleased images, and four reproduction lyric sheets and chord charts from the Strummer archive.

“There’s so much great music that Joe left us in his archive,” says Strummer’s widow and Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years Executive Producer, Lucinda Tait. “We started this work last year with ‘001’, so to focus on Joe’s work with The Mescaleros was the natural second step on ‘002’ because those songs he made with them just seemed to resonate so strongly and reinvigorated his connection with his audience at a level he hadn’t experienced since his days with The Clash.

“He was so excited to work with the Mescaleros and the reception he got from the press and fans was incredible, it gave him a whirlwind of energy and confidence and he was creatively fulfilled and happy.

“His words are so beautiful and honest and together with the Mescaleros some fantastic tunes were created and to listen to some of the tunes recorded as outtakes for me was really special.”

2022 marks twenty years since the passing of the legendary Joe Strummer. Punk poet, musician, composer, actor, and style icon, Strummer spent his life smashing musical and cultural boundaries both as the singer of The Clash and as a solo artist. His songs sound as urgent and vital today as when they were written. Calling out social injustices and giving a voice to the struggles of the working class, Strummer’s politically charged lyrics struck a chord with legions of fans and the press alike, with Rolling Stone calling The Clash “the greatest rock & roll band in the world.” He famously once said, “Without people, you’re nothing.” Through his art, Joe Strummer played his part in shaping the musical landscape of the world and with it left an unrivaled and timeless legacy.

# # #

JOE STRUMMER

JOE STRUMMER 002: THE MESCALEROS YEARS

(Dark Horse/BMG)

Release Date: Friday, September 16

TRACKLISTING

Rock Art and the X-Ray Style

1. Tony Adams

2. Sandpaper Blues

3. X-Ray Style

4. Techno D-Day

5. The Road to Rock 'N' Roll

6. Diggin' The New

7. Nitcomb

8. Forbidden City

9. Yalla Yalla

10. Willesden To Cricklewood

Global A Go-Go

1. Johnny Appleseed

2. Cool ’N’ Out

3. Global A Go-Go

4. Bhindi Bhagee

5. Gamma Ray

6. Mega Bottle Ride

7. Shaktar Donetsk

8. Mondo Bongo

9. Bummed Out City

10. At The Border, Guy

11. Minstrel Boy (full-length version)

Streetcore

1. Coma Girl

2. Get Down Moses

3. Long Shadow

4. Arms Aloft

5. Ramshackle Day Parade

6. Redemption Song

7. All In A Day

8. Burnin' Streets

9. Midnight Jam

10. Silver and Gold

Vibes Compass

1. Time And The Tide

2. Techno D-Day (Demo)

3. Ocean Of Dreams (feat. Steve Jones)

4. Forbidden City (Demo)

5. X-Ray Style (Demo)

6. The Road To Rock ‘N’ Roll (Demo)

7. Tony Adams (Demo)

8. Cool ‘N’ Out (Demo)

9. Global A Go-Go (Demo)

10. Secret Agent Man

11. All In A Day (Demo)

12. London Is Burning

13. Get Down Moses (Outtake)

14. Fantastic

15. Coma Girl (Outtake)

ABOUT DARK HORSE RECORDS

George Harrison’s passion for introducing the world to new music expressed itself in May of 1974 when he created his own new label – Dark Horse Records. The label contained a variety of talented artists on its roster, including George himself. Alongside Joe Strummer, the newly relaunched Dark Horse Records roster also includes Billy Idol, Leon Russell, Benmont Tench and others. For more information, please visit www.darkhorserecords.com.

# # #

FOLLOW JOE STRUMMER

JOESTRUMMER.COM | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | YOUTUBE

THE JOE STRUMMER FOUNDATION | DARK HORSE RECORDS

PRESS CONTACT:

Jim Merlis

jim at bighassle.com

Mentioned somewhere else that I recently read the "Redemption Song" bio and learned *so much* about Strummer that it changed the way I listen to his songs.

Bloody hell, it's been 20 years?

was there a different version of "Rainy Night in Soho" on the US version of Poguetry in Motion? I don't remember the arrangement being so treacly as the version that's on spotify.

Not sure what's on US Spotify but afaik there are three widely available versions:

From the UK Poguetry in Motion EP (Shane's preferred version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNdeQda2fDg

From the US/Canadian Poguetry in Motion EP (Elvis Costello's preferred version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwPJDfvV6Fc

1991 remix by Steve Lillywhite from the reissue of the EP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSyL-TrD_2g

yes! that second version is the one i remember. elvis is right!

i guess the lillywhite version splits the difference.

thanks!

The picture I saw of Shane just now looked so terrible I 1) won't post it and 2) first thought it had been altered. Sad.

Pretty much every photo I've seen of Shane (including the ones from Springsteen's visit) were a shock to me. I didn't realize he was in such poor health.

This one was *far* worse than the Springsteen one ...

He's being released from hospital though, at least there's that

Of course I love his music, but he's been physically declining for quite a while.

Being constantly drunk and ravaged and a bit unhinged has been his brand for decades.

Obviously I wish peace and love to him and his family and friends and fans. But you can't simultaneously dance on the edge of the abyss and be offended about the existence of the abyss.

I thought that picture was going to be worse, he looks about as good as I'd expect given everything

maybe it's a different photo? they've always been degrees of bad, for decades. The one I saw looked like he had just gotten out of a prison camp.

He's been living on borrowed time since at least the early 90s.

I guess you'll be hearing fairytale of new york a lot this year:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/2023/11/30/shane-macgowan-fairytale-of-new-york-singer-dies-aged-65/

Classic. RIP.

Yea was gonna say Fairytale is going to hit diff this year. Saw the man perform twice and he was a mess both times. 20 years ago we were regulars at the Tuesday night music-themed pub quiz at the pub he owned. He was often there and I once watched him order a round of drinks while talking about himself in the 3rd person and then realized they were all for him. RIP.

rest in peace to a brilliant songwriter, interpreter, etc.

i’d say it’s time to pour one out, but really it’s time to pour out 10-15

Back in the 80s every article I read about him mentioned his imminent death. I guess making it to Senior Citizen age is something of a win for the human body.

I once watched him order a round of drinks while talking about himself in the 3rd person and then realized they were all for him. RIP.

As fine a eulogy as anyone could want.

oh. that's why he was allowed to leave the hospital... RIP

I am literally fighting back tears. RIP, you bastard.

Dammit I loved his music so much, RIP

so many of his lyrics would be fitting eulogies. always seems to be such with fast-living poets

This is payback for Kissinger, I'm convinced. RIP

😥
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q7307IWwr4

RIP :(

couldn't just let us have Kissinger. RIP....Pogues were always one of my favs

hope you've moved on to a Dirty Old Town in the sky ole pal

Crock of Gold is an excellent doc though just gutting, I don't know if I'd recommend it today.

first thing I wanted to listen to, this version especially

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDvaHvNQsDw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJx5GJFyy9Q

What a singer, what a songwriter, what a presence in the world. Even if he lived the cliche of the self-destructive artist, he never indulged in the pretensions it often encourages. His art was clear-eyed even when it was sentimental. R.I.P. to one of my all-time favorites.

fuck. RIP. loved his music so much

me fave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNtQ5AnRlz8

thanks for the great songs Shane

Ouch but also yeah, kinda figured this was coming

He could been someone, and was.

I remember Jimmy Tarbuck lauding him as "a brilliant writer"

It's been coming for 25 years. :/

UMS - Haunted is one of my fave songs of all time. Made me so sad earlier when I realized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCMoXL-Iq1U

It's been coming for 25 years. :/

According to James Fearnley's book, at least 35.

RIP. He's meant a lot to me over 35 years, partly diaspora/background reasons but really a songwriter like no other, god those London songs alone - Transmetropolitan, Dark Streets of London, Old Main Drag, London Girl etc etc - damn.

Now get back out there and fuck them up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vXMRDs8i5g

like the case for a lot of acts, i first became aware of the pogues via an SNL appearance and i was blown away. shane was absolutely unintelligible but completely mesmerizing. so much genius work -- i actually think my favorite for quite awhile was The Snake, i played the hell out of that one.

it is genuinely sad to see him as a young man because he really just looks like a kid around the time the pogues started up, and to see him recently has been depressing. he looked like he was a couple decades older. he had a lot of love in his life, though. so many people stuck by him til the end.

the nipple erector/nips stuff isn't essential but they have some fun stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bDDAOJV1xU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpD4J7ShRDw

Is Elvis C's production of Rum... his best? I think so.

Rum... was the first album I heard, and I didn't love it; I thought the production was too bass-heavy (though I was listening to it on a cassette, in a Walkman) and there were too many slow songs. It wasn't until I tracked down a copy of Red Roses for Me that they really cracked open for me. Nowadays I love their first three albums and the Poguetry In Motion EP, but never heard anything after that. (And of course they were fine actors as well; anyone who hasn't seen Alex Cox's Straight to Hell should, at least once.)

Poguetry In Motion is my favorite, "A Rainy Night in Soho" in particular.

I thought the production was too bass-heavy

did you have some bass boost switch on like they used to have back then? Cuz it's just not overly bass heavy in terms of the mix on speakers or decent headphones

i mean it's got bass, sounds really full and good to me but not weirdly so

Navigator is a pretty good song

"Waxie's Dargle" is full-on mental.

My fave album of theirs for a long time was If I Should Fall From Grace With God and we used to blast it as we peeled out of the high school parking lot. I love the maudlin songs too just in a different way. When they were in party mode they were SO much fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsKa3vcF2Pg

I used to LOVE dancing to that song ^^ in my room and was always afraid my jumping would make the plaster fall into the room below me.

the devil's in the chair

xposts The best Elvis C. production is "Free Nelson Mandela."

One late teenage friendship involved yelling 'what'll you have/I'll have a pint/I'll have a pint with you sir' at each other a lot, often but not exclusively in pubs. My god we were annoying.

xps
idk the Special's 1st sounds as good (maybe not good-good, but right) if not better than RS&tL to me, but I like the sound he gets on both of them.

Agree Poguetry in Motion is peak. There have been annoying uses of Body of an American (yes you The Wire) but fuck that last verse is a beauty

like the case for a lot of acts, i first became aware of the pogues via an SNL appearance and i was blown away. shane was absolutely unintelligible but completely mesmerizing.

― omar little, Thursday, 30 November 2023 17:29 (two hours ago) link

I remember watching this when it was live and my mother, who often had trouble sleeping, would sometimes come downstairs & watch tv with me, was proper horrified by Shane's teeth "my god his teeth!"

UMS & I saw him with the Popes in the late 90s and it was hugely chaotic, drunken affair, I think they had played Chicago the night before and rumor was Shane was still in the greater Cook County area at showtime, he did eventually appear one or two songs into the show but he even though he was upright and singing he was clearly not exactly...er awake. Then about halfway through the song he eyes suddenly opened, he came awake in the middle of singing and the whole crowd roared and his face, he looked like he was amazed to be alive, there was so much joy in his eyes at that moment. RIP

from what it sounds to me Elvis did what you should do with a great live band, mostly get out of the way

yep -- most producers don't know this wisdom though!

from what it sounds to me Elvis did what you should do with a great live band, mostly get out of the way marry the bass player

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 30 November 2023 19:54 (two minutes ago) link

I'm sure Cait said in an interview they never actually married?

i didn’t really get into the Pogues until i was at Uni

the only song i really knew before i knew them was the covers like Dirty Old Town & Band Played Waltzing Matilda — mostly because my mum was super into Irish folk music & i occasionally went with her to some of the local regional celtic music festivals

but at Uni we had this bush dance night where they had a live band playing old australian folk songs & sorta square dance things - it was corny & fun & we all got rolling drunk. after the final dances & everyone was leaving but the band were still set up & playing, my friend who was a rabid pogues song asked the band if they knew any pogues songs, they were up for it i guess because they played for maybe 5 or 10 of us and ripped through a bunch of Pogues
we had so much fun & i fell in love w the songs immediately
my friend gave me a cassette copy of Rum Sodomy & The Lash the next day and it stayed in my car stereo for years afterwards, excellent for long boring drives back & forth between my home town & uni

truly some of the best soul-stirring music for me personally

mcgowans version of the band played waltzing matilda still makes me cry every goddamn time

"now come you gentleman soldier, won't you marry me??"

xp Passage from EC's autobiography:

Cait O'Riordan and I were not married in any church or by any legal authority, but our own were once sincere and certainly bound us to each other.

...

She played in The Pogues, led by a great songwriter who was utterly contemptuous of me, although I admired him nonetheless. I produced the only good and truthful-sounding record they ever made...

Should be "our vows" not "our own"

Red Roses sounds about as good tbh, like more fun, but fair play EC that Lillywhite sound on If I should fall… has its moments but gets in the way

i told my story re being behind shane at a mark stewart gig in the other thread re shane.

there is now photographic evidence ..

no idea if this will work.

https://scontent.fbrs4-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/405226775_10227254469802156_1410091209896366032_n.jpg?stp=cp6_dst-jpg&_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c42490&_nc_ohc=YREGHa5irpQAX8qtn6W&_nc_ht=scontent.fbrs4-2.fna&oh=00_AfB5oUyXjWhuX9OYUUTBfGmwG0q0zSHpYxekyHnH_4Cuag&oe=656D5617

mcgowans version of the band played waltzing matilda still makes me cry every goddamn time

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, November 30, 2023 8:17 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I read this post and thought 'yes, brilliant version that I appreciate but I am hard hearted now, no, no tears for me' but it just came on and ofc I'm broken.

I generally admire Mr Mac manus but it is a dick move to say that it was the ONLY worthwhile record the Pogues made.

It was a large band that made a lot of music under a lot of circumstances - live and in studios. I love that record but it wasn't the only good thing they did.

Yeah, EC was just taking the piss. I mean, I like all of their albums up through and including Peace and Love, and most of Hell's Ditch as well.

I saw the Pogues here, with Shane, back in maybe 2007? He and they were great.

I love all the albums through If I Should Fall From Grace With God, and there's a good handful of classics on the two other Shane/Pogues albums (not all of them by Shane -- hello "Lorelei"). Jem Finer wrote "Misty Morning Albert Bridge," but it's one of my favorite Shane vocals.

I saw them in Atlanta in 2009. They were . . . amazing. Shane was surprisingly coherent. He made it through "Bottle of Smoke" with nary a slip.

God damn it. This is going to hurt for a while.

area at showtime, he did eventually appear one or two songs into the show but he even though he was upright and singing he was clearly not exactly...er awake. Then about halfway through the song he eyes suddenly opened, he came awake in the middle of singing and the whole crowd roared and his face, he looked like he was amazed to be alive, there was so much joy in his eyes at that moment. RIP

This is extremely similar to what happened when I saw him at one of the Guinness Fleadhs around 1998.

Is Elvis C's production of Rum... his best? I think so.

Poguetry In Motion is my favorite, "A Rainy Night in Soho" in particular.

In a way that backs up Elvis's work as a producer, I always preferred the oboe overdub on "A Rainy Night in Soho" - Shane wanted the flugelhorn and the argument may have been the last straw that got them to look for another producer the next time around. (I like the idea of a flugelhorn, but on this record it sounded a little too obtrusive in the mix to me.)

Anyway, quite the gut punch this morning even if it was clear that Shane was in poor health. The opening track of Rum Sodomy & the Lash feels like a fitting epitaph to me, especially the final verse and chorus.

I think a 90 minute cassette of the best Pogues songs would be my favorite album of all time.

As a Pogues neophyte, are even their albums generally regarded as uneven?

nah. diverse, sure, eclectic. but not uneven.

I'm mostly familiar with Rum Sodomy & the Lash and If I Should Fall from Grace with God, and they're both great and both consistent, rock solid albums. They weave in covers and instrumental passages, which feel like the sort of thing some people may unfairly criticize (I see that reaction towards other albums that include those things) but I wouldn't - they're all wonderful.

I love the variety of those albums. Hell's Ditch is especially good for that too.

the pogues knew exactly what they wanted to do and they accomplished it vv well, up to and including hell's ditch. i've never heard the albums w/o shane, i assume they're about as essential as post-lou reed doug yule-era VU.

I used to LOVE dancing to that song ^^ in my room and was always afraid my jumping would make the plaster fall into the room below me.

I love this story.

Yup the covers and versions on the first three albums are a brilliant and (I think?) not obvious collection, also as I get drunker I keep wanting to drop in the thread and just shout 'AND WE DID NOT CATCH THAT WHALE'

Also also I hadn't listened to the medley on If I should fall… in years. That Galway Races is a blast

the weird moments on rum sodomy ("gentleman soldier," "wild cats of kilkenny") are some of my favorites

And the basic strangeness of having Cait sing "I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day"

Right! it's the one that the men would always sing at parties when I was a kid and hearing Cait singing it was definitely a 'well... fuck… this is confusing but good' moment for 13yo me.

diverse, sure, eclectic. but not uneven.

the pogues knew exactly what they wanted to do and they accomplished it vv well, up to and including hell's ditch.

Both otm. I listened to Rum Sodomy and If I Should Fall ... this afternoon and was enjoying exactly their overstuffed-ness, the random instrumentals and occasional other lead vocals (Spider Stacy on "Jesse James," Cait O'Riordan's lovely turn), the nods toward big-band swing, spaghetti Westerns, fake Middle Eastern flourishes — they were a punky anti-purist band who seemed happy to indulge just about any whim. Some of that may have been necessitated by having a somewhat unpredictable/unreliable leader, granted, forcing others to step up. But on the albums at least it feels like a big friendly party. A cèilidh!

And then they'd do something like this, for no obvious reason at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-JdFM41RUg

^ that song rules. one of my faves

I saw them on the Fall from Grace tour and I'd love to see today what that crowd looked like then. The band was great but it was a party that ultimately went bad -- had to head to the balcony b/c it got too heated on the floor. Have no recollection of Shane from that show, but saw him and the Popes ~12 years later and it was memorably grim. Unintelligible, slurring, wasn't even trying...maybe couldn't? Short set.

Absolutely love Rum Sodomy and the Lash. Happily rediscovered today that I still know it front to back. Man, "Old Main Drag" is something else. Didn't quite catch the allusion there to five quid hand-jobs when I was 15 years old, but they blew my mind with all the stuff everyone's already mentioned here. I also kinda understand this quote from the Times obit -- “the greatest disaster ever to hit Irish music.” Not cuz I agree, but there was certainly no reason to listen to trad Irish after hearing the Pogues. Or at least any of the music that was making its way here. Who was possibly going to be half as exciting as the Pogues??

For all the behind the scenes drama and issues with shane, they were so prolific, over 7 years they released five albums plus the Poguetry in motion EP.

Yup and there’s fair bit of non-album stuff - Haunted, Yeahx5, Rake at the Gates of Hell, trad versions and of course Jack’s Heroes.

Nice obit in the Irish Times from his biographer: https://www.irishtimes.com/obituaries/2023/11/30/shane-macgowan-obituary-rank-outsider-who-became-one-of-irelands-most-feted-sons/

I wonder how much Shane loved that his biographer's name is Balls.

xp OMMMGGGGG the remix of YYYYYY where he says "I love your brrrrreeeeeeasts" like 5000x used to make my friends and I lol so much

Also i just remembered that "Lorca's Novena" coincided with my AP Spanish class in hs and I felt so freaking literate knowing who Lorca was. I hope Shane is at peace -- he brought me and so many people a lot of joy.

xxpost: Richard Balls, even

Hope his parents were brave enough to give him the middle name Nick or Norman.

short interview with him from when the book came out: https://www.edp24.co.uk/lifestyle/20641855.richard-balls-interviewing-shane-macgowan-real-eye-opener/

Yup and there’s fair bit of non-album stuff - Haunted, Yeahx5, Rake at the Gates of Hell, trad versions and of course Jack’s Heroes.

The first thing of theirs I ever bought was the "Pair of Brown Eyes" 12-inch with "Whiskey You're the Devil" and "Muirshin Durkin" on the flip side.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/12/sleep-easy-shane

This is very good.

yeah that was a+

I was all :rolleyes: at Fairytale of New York going to be played everywhere again, but you know what, it's still a great great song and let's get it to n°1 for Christmas.

otm

xposts I was struck by the line "Over the course of seven albums, The Pogues left an extraordinary imprint on British popular music."

Have they? Are there bands one would describe as influenced by the Pogues? I feel that the "imprint" of a group like the Clash remains greater, and probably broadly includes whatever influence the Pogues might have conveyed - the politics, the eclecticism, the attitude - but maybe I'm wrong. Sometimes I feel like the (at least sonically demonstrable) impact/imprint of the Pogues on American acts might be greater, but I'm happy to be corrected.

Kaleb Horton:

https://www.gq.com/story/shane-macgowan-will-outlive-all-of-us

let's ask billy bragg

xp

Sorry to hear of the demise, after a long illness, of one of the greatest songwriters of my generation, Shane MacGowan. The Pogues reinvigorated folk music in the early 80s and his songs put the focus onto lyric writing, opening doors for the likes of myself and others.

— Billy Bragg (@billybragg) November 30, 2023

fucking beautiful, Kaleb always nails it

xpost That's a great example. Obviously I don't want to/can't contradict Billy, but is there anything he got from the Pogues that he did not get from the Clash (or other punk protest music)? I hear a lot of the Clash but I'm not hearing much of the Pogues in his stuff, though of course there is the Kirsty connection. Maybe it's the idea of the Pogues, sort of like the idea of Dylan. Countless bands are influenced by Dylan, whether they sound like him or not.

Anyway, what I'm half getting at is that the Pogues were pretty special (not unlike the Specials!) so their impact maybe contains multitudes. I'm curious to hear responses from those other than the usual suspects.

I never found any band I liked as much as the Pogues bc the songwriting was just not as good or interesting. It’s like most of my favorite bands — people take bits and pieces but no one has the total alchemy. Billy Bragg probably the closest bc he was political and also vulnerably romantic. The Clash didn’t have that but Pogues did. At least in my mind.

I should say I never found any Irish folk rock I liked as much as Pogues and lord knows I tried.

The music of the pogues possesses this deep sadness that is so frequently coupled with this fervent resistance and strength in the face of the sadness and I've never really heard any music that does that as well

I gotta say, y'all amaze me. This place amazes me. I wasn't expecting so many un-ironic posts in praise of MacGowan. I like the Pogues without loving them -- they're before my time and my college station never played them, so I had to discoer Rum... on my own -- but I've played the first three albums a lot thanks to this thread.

i’ve been thinking about MacGowan’s abilities as a singer of covers, an interpreter i guess idk

his version of Nick Cave’s “Lucy”, for example he is able to adjust the levels of the original, where Nick is singing to the rafters & really pushing the drama; where MacGowan makes it so stripped down & plainspoken, that then makes the last lines “i’ll love her forever” etc so devastating

also their duet of What a Wonderful World he stays so sweetly true to the original that his delivery feels so much more sincere, it kind of upstages Cave after his big intro

like the perception of his delivery in general is overshadowed by his permanent state of drunkenness, but he has such a great talent for delivering the emotional essence of the lyrics with some quite subtle modulations imo

lowkey genius

plus the very rare ability to take a traditional ditty and make it vital.

how many versions of "dirty old town" are there? well there's only one that matters

the band helps sure, but macgowan just completely inhabits the narrators of his songs

i'm kinda with josh i think you see a lot in america - dropkick murphys, the tossers, flogging molly (i'm not suggesting that these bands are remotely on the same planet as the pogues quality wise)

One song I was returning to this week a lot is one he didn't even write,"Thousands are Sailing"...sad and defiant and a raucous party, all at once. It's a beautiful one, made twice so bc of Shane.

That song is so good. Along with (per Tipsy) "Lorelei." Band had a deep bench of songwriters.

Yeah, “Thousands” is probably my favourite Pogues track, and altho the writing and playing is all top-tier, the way it hits me comes down to the way Shane gets behind the lyrics

I've been thinking about something I'd never really noticed - we call The Pogues prolific (~83-90) upthread but actually there are what maybe 30-odd actual MacGowan originals from those years that range from good to actually obliteratingly great, and it's some testament that off that songwriters with wide deep catalogues (eg Springsteen) just line up to say that he's an all-timer.

Re: Shane and the Pogues as interpreters, do we really need any other version of "The Irish Rover"?

(tbf, the best one is probably the one they did with the Dubliners)

Also - I watched the Julien Temple documentary tonight and whatever - great footage, too much mythologising, good interviews - but it's mystifying when you hit 'first song I wrote for The Pogues' and watch 'Streams of Whiskey' and it's just just… how? The gift.

didn't know Dylan was a massive fan

on interpretation, imo yes always more Irish Rovers/Kittys/Poor Paddys/Galway Races/Waxies Dargles, as many as possible, keep that shit moving, have fun along the way, that's one of the lessons

Time to hear this again:

Rum Sodomy and the Lash poll

RIP

xxpost jimbeaux otm
their version of Irish Rover is definitive for me for sure! heard sooooo many renditions in my years tagging along w mum at irish music festival & this one is as rollicking as it gets <3

The bands that have an obvious Pogues influence take the wrong bits from The Pogues. The records are great because they somehow transcend the rowdiest and most maudlin parts that reel you in.

i love their Rocky Road To Dublin too

Had not seen/heard this, lovely of course. Can’t believe we lost both of them this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocjxFunwQNE

Also I’ve been glad to see so many people talk about him as a singer and interpreter in addition to his songwriting. He was a GREAT singer, at least when he wasn’t too slurry to get through. And even sometimes then. His phrasing, sure, the gravelly gravity of his voice, but the key is something more like heart, feeling, emotional resonance. He can hit the full range within one verse of a song, from love to grief to regret to knowing humor. There was nothing artless about it, he knew what notes he was aiming for musically and emotionally, and he could be as brash or subtle as the moment needed.

Looks like that Carol Clerk "Kiss My Arse" book is ridiculously out of print and otherwise MIA.

ugh i know i looked that up too! can’t even get it through inter-library loan :( :(

tipsy otmfm

Also I’ve been glad to see so many people talk about him as a singer and interpreter in addition to his songwriting. He was a GREAT singer, at least when he wasn’t too slurry to get through.

Okay I may have said something about "Navigator" but then I thought about "A Pair of Brown Eyes."

I am not ready to listen to either one right now but they are out there if you want them.

I was so sad all day but “What A Wonderful World” was what truly set me bawling last night, absolute waterworks

This is a cool video, the band recording "Johnny Come Lately" with Steve Earle in 1988. Shane's clearly been sidelined and/or sidelined himself. Steve Lillywhite seems enthusiastic about the idea of people other than Shane stepping up. And this is the heart of Earle's cocaine years and seems like it. But it's still pretty awesome to see them all put a song together. It's a good tune, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK_TZY7pihU

one of my alltime favorite Steve Earle songs <3 <3

Had not seen/heard this, lovely of course. Can’t believe we lost both of them this year.

It's really f-ing sad that only a year ago, the two of them and Terry Hall were still with us. I knew they all had their struggles, physical and psychological, but it's still unbelievable that we'd lose all three so soon.

Just gonna chime in to say that Shane's "I will not be reconstructed" from Sunny Side of the Street is such a powerful delivery... it's so immediate... as direct as music can get...

RIP

ha fascinating pogues/earle video-- he's an artist i never listened to, actually out of respect to him sorta. ain't my genre, i bring too much luggage, he has always seemed cool basically, it's been like...that's enough.

i LOVE that Steve Earle song -- there is a similarity between him and Shane in my mind because both seemed like real honest to goodness romantics. Fuckups for sure, but hearts of gold. It's a characteristic I responded to a lot when I was younger and I could never really put my finger on it. It's definitely real though.

poll: who’s more authentic than shane macgowan?

just as an aside if anyone wants to make a difficult music quiz: link Sonic Youth & The Pogues

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Tetras

I’ve had Jamie Stewart sobbing “I never got my degree, chachi / I never played in The Pogues” in my head these past days :(

I used to see Shane way back when, particularly in a record shop in Hanway Street. (I only just 'discovered' he 'worked' there, the number of times he looked more like he was hanging out with mates..)

Anyway, he was a face on the scene pre-pogues, and he did various bands that had plenty of enthusiasm behind them and when Pogue Machine first started it did seem at first it was fuelled by "I can do that" more than actual insight. But no, something had clicked into place right then. Suddenly, all this genius was right there!

There have been plenty of songwriter/performers who's early stuff, while not terrible, were clearly not quite there but had some sort of germ of what came after. I can't think of any who blossomed in quite the way Shane did.

I doubt he'll have the big posthumous surge in respect that Amy Winehouse got, but at least he got it while he was alive.

Anyway, there you go.

Still stand by what I wrote in this thread, uhhh, TWENTY years ago. Only I don't believe it was hyperbolic enough.

Kind of shocked to discover there's no "collected lyrics" type book for Shane, aside from an out-of-print 1990 volume that goes for hundreds of dollars now. Maybe in the next couple years. I'm generally never interested in books like that but Shane is one of the few exceptions for me, one of the best to ever do it. Mark G otm, glad he got his flowers while he was here.

Also I’ve been glad to see so many people talk about him as a singer and interpreter in addition to his songwriting. He was a GREAT singer, at least when he wasn’t too slurry to get through. And even sometimes then. His phrasing, sure, the gravelly gravity of his voice, but the key is something more like heart, feeling, emotional resonance. He can hit the full range within one verse of a song, from love to grief to regret to knowing humor. There was nothing artless about it, he knew what notes he was aiming for musically and emotionally, and he could be as brash or subtle as the moment needed.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Friday, December 1, 2023 9:12 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Something that has struck me, esp listening to RS&L is just how much care and inflection he puts on certain words and syllables to convey whatever it is he is trying put across.

For some reason the way his voice retreats into something closer to his speaking tone and then cuts off at the end of "Old Main Drag" just kills me every time.

Yeah, he was definitely one of the best bad singers. Like, even when he wasn't singing well, he brought something essential.

I wish I knew how to do that - be simultaneously bad and good at something.

Still stand by what I wrote in this thread, uhhh, TWENTY years ago.

listening to podcasts that included a lot of strummer commentary, i had just sorta forgot the long duration of his role with em, before macgowan left. that sounds like a fucking night

Strummer was a completely different kind of person and musician. I have never understood that shift, given that people like Luka Bloom were available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi2JEdKwzAI

fortune prevailing!
across the western ocean
their bellies full
their spirits free
they'll break the chains of poverty
and they'll dance!

#ShaneMacGowan #Dublin
Rest in peace Shane. Thank you for the music, the punk and poetry. pic.twitter.com/kgyWfhvmT8

— Son of Mick (@PH5271) December 8, 2023

Heard some BBC coverage of people gathering for the funeral, sounds like quite a send-off.

This is the real Dublin ❤️‍🔥

So long Shane 🙏#ShaneMacGowan pic.twitter.com/YxZtmXxxI2

— Fergal Burke (@fergaljburke) December 8, 2023

it seems quite mad that his funeral is being shown live on bbc, especially with his wife talking about how he took 100 acid tabs a day!

most bonkers funeral ever. fantastic.

The immanent psychiatrist, Irvin Yalom, said, “each of us creates-—often without our conscious intent or knowledge—concentric circles of influence that may affect others for years, even generations. That is, the effect we have on other people is in turn passed on to others, much as the ripples in a pond go on and on until they’re no longer visible but continuing at a nano level.” Dr. Yalom calls this idea that our own influence can ripple out to others rippling. Yalom says rippling is “leaving behind something from your life experience; some trait; some piece of wisdom, guidance, virtue, comfort, that passes onto others, known or unknown.” Rippling is the idea that that people continue to exist through the impact they have had on others. Yalom suggests everyone has the potential to affect others for years, decades and even centuries after departing this earth.

Glen Hansard and Lisa O'Neill performed "Fairytale of New York" to close Shane MacGowan's funeral today.pic.twitter.com/bG7mCSusmC

— CONSEQUENCE (@consequence) December 8, 2023

R.I.P. Shane MacGowan
Here is Nick Cave performing 'A Rainy Night in Soho' at Shane's funeral in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, on Friday afternoon #ShaneMacGowan 💙pic.twitter.com/7BXaAp1CyP

— 🎶Paul Lewis - Wycombe Gigs (@wycombegigs) December 8, 2023

^Irvin Yalom OTM.
Speaking of Pogues x Steve Earle, I hear related appeal in the (candidly precarious, vibrantly focused) peak albums of Justin Townes Earle (a better singer than Steve): Midnight at the Movies was my gateway, and there were several more before he started seeming so fragile that I backed off---I didn't know him, so that was okay, I thought--then he rallied for The Saint of Lost Causes, one of his best ever, then he was gone.

those performances are so good, esp enjoyed hansard

really feeling this one today
just tearfully waltzed meself around the kitchen <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66quTi26YLY

I love “Rainy Night in Soho,” but I didn’t realize its cultural impact, that it’s kind of the go-to Shane song other than “Fairytale of NY.”

podcast wise, “Misadventures in Music” with Ian Prowse and Mick Ord did a great ep about McGowan a couple of years ago in 2021 - very passionate & deep discussion, highly recommend

also includes a good interview at the end w the Crock of Gold producer

really feeling this one today
just tearfully waltzed meself around the kitchen <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66quTi26YLY

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, December 8, 2023 9:36 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this and Five Green Queens are the songs I really really love from Hell's Ditch. Almost just wisps, but absurdly lovely, a kind of brilliance that's miles away from his ferocious piles of words.

yeah the simplicity really bowls me over, just as much as his epics do

I love “Rainy Night in Soho,” but I didn’t realize its cultural impact, that it’s kind of the go-to Shane song other than “Fairytale of NY.”

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Friday, December 8, 2023 10:15 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yup and I can never puzzle out whether its careful ambiguity is part of the deal or sort of off to one side of a gorgeous romantic-sounding record. Cool either way, songs have their own lives.

We have sin gas
And con leche

re Soho: macgowan is one of the rare few songwriters I’m not mad at rhyming arms with charms

macgowan said years ago that he didnt know what it was about even while he was writing until almost the end, which is something i love
theres an ease to the flow of the lyrics that makes it very believable that it just showed up fully formed
he was communing with a good & kind muse that day imo

You’re the measure of my dreams

That one is breaking me right now

fully sobbed over that line again today

Some people they are scared to croak
But Jimmy drank until he choked

WE WALKED HIM TO THE STATION IN THE RAINNNN

WE KISSED HIM AS WE PUT HIM ON THE TRAIN

That was my first response when heard about his death, just posted the chorus to Sally MacLennane. We sang him a song of times long gone, though we knew that we'd be seeing him again.

FARRR AWAAAY!!

heard them say that Jimmy's making money far away
And some people left for heaven without warning

me fave:

Now Jimmy didn't like his place in this world of ours
Where the elephant man broke strong men's necks
When he'd had too many Powers

Strangely, the lines that tend to get to me are

For to shift a few tons of this earthly delight

Yes to shift a few tons of this earthly delight

I know Shane didn't write that song but the way he delivers it just kinda works for me

His delivery is at least as much a part of his appeal as his writing.

And yet he was one of the rare songwriters whose lyrics are good on the page as well

Stumbled on this after watching an RTE Late Late Show tribute to McGowan from yesterday...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otVTYS1fR6c

(bah, can't embed, but it's Shane and many of the same people from the tribute from the other night, from 2019. Shane in not great shape but sings a bit alongside a large band including Terry Woods)

I don’t know enough about Puddles the clown to have an opinion of him, but this is a pretty delightful performance of “A Man You Don’t Meet Every Day” with THE actual Cait O’Riordan.

https://fb.watch/oQBALSjS81/?mibextid=cr9u03

every time I see a Puddles video I'm kind of blown away, that guy has a great voice and good schtick

(xxpost) if you ever wanted to see Martin O'Malley (yes that one) sing a Pogues song you can see it here

RS Album Guide

https://i.imgur.com/gd095xW.png

lol @ Waiting for Herb one-star. before I knew anything about The Pogues I wanted to get one of their albums because I'd heard good things about them and that album was the only one of theirs on the rack, and rather than do research, I picked it up, and was very confused by what I was hearing. didn't even realize it was a Shane-less album at the time.

suspect it'd be easier to like if it's not your first foray into Pogue-dom and you can hear it in context but never got through the first listen

Tuesday Morning is a really good song. The rest of the album I don't remember! I don't remember hating it though. It was better than the next one.

weirdly it was produced by Michael Brook (of Eno/Lanois and Edge's 'infinite guitar' fame)

J.D.C. = J.D. Considine?

i'm amazed there isn't more chat about the funeral. it was literally the craziest thing ever.

i can't find the whole thing online but it was cool to see Nick Cave do Rainy Night and Hansard do Fairytale. Lots of love in there. Was the terribly old man in the front pew McGowan's father? Also, was the casket in a wicker basket?

yes and yes. his father seemed to be emotionally in turmoil throughout while everyone else was having the time of their lives, his wife especially. not being judgemental here; it was very fitting, but very, very odd seeing his wife leaping over pews to dance. i'm not sure how typical this was but if it was, i have to say nobody seemingly does a funeral like the irish. well, maybe the good folk of new orleans can compete.

he was ill for so long I can't blame her for trying to finally have a good time.

i felt a bit of a kinship with his Dad being the only one not clapping, something about applause at a funeral in a church that feels slightly craven/sacriligious

always feel a bit overcome for parents who outlive their children
he’s quite up there iirc, isnt he in his mid 90’s?

but the funeral also felt v mcgowan & the highspiritedness was of course appropriate for him & his vibe