I know it’s a traditional song that goes back a long way and the lyrics vary a bit between versions. I’ve always considered the Pogues version the definitive one because that’s the one I heard first and because it’s so excellent. As far as the meaning goes, my internet researches haven’t found much. The little out there pretty much considers it a song sung from the perspective of a well-liked, well-heeled, generous and easy-going man who considers himself exceptional. My take on it, however, has always been very different.
There’s the first part of the song, where he indeed goes on about being easy-going (at least, that’s the best interpretation of the phrase “canny gaun man” I’ve come across; I know many lyric sites post “gun” instead of “gaun”, which does put a more edgy pall on it, but as far as I can tell the traditional word is “gaun”). He’s talking up his wealth and buying everyone expensive drinks (one site made a point to mention that “brandy and wine” would have been imported and thus much more expensive than local beverages). But then there’s the jarring verse wherein he sings about shooting his dog. And then he goes right back telling everyone to be “easy and free” when drinking with him.
The dog shooting recasts the whole song for me. Now instead of the singer being a generous and benevolent rich man, I picture him as a subjugating and sinister wealthy man who is using pretentious pseudo-generosity to emphasize and reinforce his control over those whom he considers the “little people” around him. The fact that he so blithely shoots his dog - generally regarded as the most loyal of companions and often treated with greater respect by thier owners than those owners display for other humans - makes it starkly apparent that while you may enjoy what to him are the trifles he doles out, at any moment he could and would if it pleased him just as blithely do away with you. He is indeed a man you don’t meet every day - more powerful than the law, not bound by conscience.
Is it possible, I ask self-flatteringly, that I have put more cynical spin on this song than the Pogues intended?
I know nothing about this song, but I do know a lot of Irish songs.
Thoughts: the name is definitively Scottish. Not sure if ‘canny’ is used that much in Ireland, but it is in Scotland. ‘Gaun’ is a Scots word meaning ‘gone’ (the past tense of ‘gae’, to go).
In the last verse, Kildare is mentioned, so this song - this version at least - is definitely Irish.
The stereotype of Scots is usually as tight-fisted, but the verses sing of the man’s generosity.
All the verses are positive except for the last one, which makes him look like a monster.
“Men at command” makes me think he’s a military person as well as a landowner.
In summary: drawing all of these impressions together, I think this is a satirical take on a Scottish ‘planter’ or member of the British forces during the long occupation of Ireland. And “a man you don’t meet every day” means “the kind of man you don’t meet every day”. The satire is that you don’t often meet a generous Scots occupier - and the final verse undoes all of this deliberately and injects a note of danger: do not trust this man.
OK, I’ve just found it listed as a ‘happy’ Scots drinking song, so it’s a possibility that the last verse was tacked on by Irish singers wanting to make it a bit more political. Or it’s just gobbledigook.
The song is about a pretentious guy who wants to make himself out to be more than he is. He’s using the name of the James Stewart for one - pretending to be deposed royalty. It’ s an ironic song about how he’s tearing himself down by the manner in which he goes about trying to build himself up.
The Pogues do like to have their bit of black humour. But the version I’ve always heard has him out shooting with his dogs. Hunting with a dog is what landowners and rich folks do. The fact that he even brings that into it implies that he’s had some experience with being poor and poaching - which has to be done quietly, one can’t risk the baying of a hound. It’s like if somebody started to brag about what they spent on the rims for their car; it tells you immediately where they stand. the pogues may have been taking it a step further by sayign that he’d been trapper, had never been able to own a gun and so shot the dog by mistake the first time he tried to go hunting.
The same is true of his emphasis on the sort of drink they can order. A poor man buys a glass of beer when he can, and wishes for something stronger. A man rich all his life would never have considered this, and encourages his friends to have a drink on him, assuming they’ll order whatever they want. A man who emphasis what they can buy has grown up poor but had a recent bit of luck.
Hmm I guess my interpretation was all wrong. I assumed he was an old soldier who had traveled and made his fortune, and retired hermit style. Then one day he had to put his dog down, and was sad and lonely and depressed so he went to the local bar to drink away his sorrows to talk old times, and decided to be generous with the locals.
I always heard it as a wealthy playboy type buying a round for the pub. In my head “my dog I did shoot” was a colloquial way of saying he took his dog hunting all across Kildare county, not that he killed his dog in Kildare county. The latter interpretation doesn’t really fit the rest of the song
Maybe his dog, (as in ‘hair of the dog’) is like the monkey on his back, his ‘faithful ally’ from the bottle that had started to suck more out of him than he does out of it. It would fit with him now being “a canny gaun man” in contrast to the “roving young fellow” he’s been. He’s done that but is happy now to buy the drinks and share the mood of drinking, still has this love of his old friend and though now more careful himself retains the being “easy and free” and wants the people he’s with to be this way too. We see in poguetry what we look to find in it.
An old broadside ballad version (titled “I’m the man you don’t meet everyday”) has him as an Irishman who’s visiting in England (Liverpool). In that context, it seems a little like he’s saying that he’s someone you don’t meet everyday because he’s not a local fellow and only around a short time (though he is still a wealthy landowner).
That seems to make the most sense, considering the carefree tune to the rest of the lyrics. It wouldn’t make sense to say you shot your dog “All down in the the country Kildare.” That implies traveling and repeatedly shooting an invincible dog, which I have a nagging suspicion is not the intended message of that line.
I remember hearing (and I don’t remember where anymore, maybe in the movie “If I Should Fall From Grace” maybe on a Pogues devoted website) that the traditional lyric is "I took out my dog * and gun to go* shoot/all down in the …"etc, but that they changed the lyric in the recording studio because they thought it was funny to have this great guy shoot his dog at the end of the song. It made the song satirical in a way the original wasn’t intended to be. The Pogues were still a punk rock bank at heart and punk bands did this a lot with cover songs, see The Dead Kennedy’s Viva Las Vegas for another example of a punk band doing the same thing.