The Pogues: Classic or Dud

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