At one point I tried getting into popular urban fantasist Charles de Lint’s books and after reading a couple, more or less failed. Mostly it was his writing style - not awful, but it didn’t do it for me.
But a secondary complaint was the mild Pogues bashing in one of his novels ( I forget which, even after looking at titles ). Apparently quite the Celtic music afficianado himself, I guess he was one of those that regarded the press they were getting on the London scene, while “more skilled” traditional Celtic folkies were ignored, as a slap in the face.
To be fair though, that may have been referring to their earlier stuff, before they started blending genres more.
edited to add: Searching around, I think it was The Little Country and I think maybe I am misremembering the intensity of his bashing. I just inserted the modifier “mild” above. Someone else accuses him of chatting up the Pogues too much in a different novel, so maybe he changed his tune :).
Still, I remember being mildly rankled at the time, having just recently fallen in love with the band.
Sober? SOBER???!! If sober means no drinking at all, then no he’s not sober.
Was that a serious question? I mean come on, it’s Shane we’re talking about! He’ll never go sober. (That sounds pretty irreverent and I don’t mean it to. There’s no smiley that fits here I don’t think.)
He says he’s totally off heroin. I mean, the papers say he says that. He said it himself in an interview a few years ago. Who knows though. I hope he’s off that at least.
There’s a famous photo of him at a Clash concert from before he was in the Pogues.
I think my favorite of their songs is The Sickbed of Cuchalainn. It’s fun, dynamic, and has great lyrics. I think if I ever get married I’ll play “Rainy Night in Soho” at the wedding.
The closest to dislike of any of their songs is “Jesse James” because the gunshot sounds are annoying.
The Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds “B-Sides & Rarities” album has three Pogues-related songs on it. First is a version of “What A Wonderful World” sung as a duet between Nick Cave and Shane McGowan. The second is a cover by Nick Cave of “Rainy Night in Soho”, and the third is a cover by Shane MacGowan of the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song “Lucy”.
I like the version of “What A Wonderful World”. It works well as a duet and sounds like a couple of friends getting drunk together and singing.
Nick Cave’s “Rainy Night in Soho” is good but not anywhere near as good as the original IMO. Shane’s strained voice adds to the bittersweetness. Cave’s version is good to play for people who want to hear the song but don’t like rough singing voices.
The cover of “Lucy” I don’t have much of an opinion on. I like it, but I want to hear it and the original more before deciding.
While I’m mentioning Nick Cave and the Pogues, the recent movie “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” has a brief appearance by Nick Cave as a singer singing “Jesse James”, which The Pogues did a version of. I originally thought it was written by the Pogues so I thought it was weird to have it in a historical movie.
Is Hell’s Ditch or any Pogues album after that worth owning? It apparently has a liner note intro by Tom Waits, which makes me think he might be a fan of it. How about any other albums by Shane or the other bandmembers?
That BBC documentary I linked up above somewhere has photos or footage of him in 1978 and his teeth looked normal. But by 1984 they were messed up. He has had at least one car accident (hit by a taxi and thrown through the air) over the years and been beaten up several times and supposedly lost teeth because of that. I think he fell out the back of a van once too and knocked out something. And then if you lose even one tooth and never fix it, the others all start to get wonky and loose and eventually they fall out too.
None of this was helped by booze and drugs and probably the resultant disinclination to attend to things that other people would attend to. Maybe he’s got a horrible fear of the dentist too. I really, really hate the dentist but one thing that keeps ME going is fear of ending up like Shane. Maybe he doesn’t have anyone else to look askance at.
I don’t know why he’s always thought (so it is said) that he is ugly. Aside from the teeth he’s perfectly acceptable and sometimes downright beautiful. More so when he was 30, yes, but most of us don’t look as good at 50 as at 25 anyway, and years of alcohol don’t make things any easier.
I think I’d have to choose A Fairy Tale of New York as my favorite Pogues song. It also makes my list of top Christmas songs.
I’m glad I saw this thread. I’ve always been a casual Pogues fan and only own 1 CD. For some reason I aways classified them as an Irish band but it never occurred to me that they were a punk band also. Listening to them with that in mind it’s so obvious I feel like an idiot.
If that is true, then Shane is even funnier than I imagined!
I don’t think Shane will ever get sober, but not every drink in his hand at any given moment is alcoholic. When we were at one of last year’s shows, his drink got kicked during a song and hit a girl down front (we were about 10 feet back). She said it was water.
I am so happy to hear that Phil Chevron seems to have beaten the cancer and may go back out on tour. I don’t suppose there is a snowball’s chance in hell of having them back in SoCal this year…
We took my young brother-in-law to a show last year. He sees himself as a guitarist in the Dave Matthews vein. We laughed and said he would see someone that night who truly rocked. You could see the thought in his mind when Chevron took the stage (“Hey, who brought their grandpa on stage?”) but that look was soon replaced by respect and awe.
I think sometimes people just assume he’s constantly hammered. I am sure he is a lot, a LOT, don’t get me wrong, but maybe not quite as much as it is publicized to be. And this whole thing with slurring everything, which makes everyone assume it’s out of drunkenness, I am sure has a lot to do with the teeth.
He went on tour already! He did the whole spring East Coast tour. He has written that he’s feeling great and he sounds in very good spirits.
Yah one time I was talking about them and listing the regular instruments and when I came to “accordion” my friend was all “Um wot? A punk band with an accordion??” Well he got converted soon enough.
I saw them in the mid 80s and they were great. Shane was a bottle of wine/spirits and cigarettes in those days. I saw him interviewed a few years later after he had been a messy show ruining drunk for a while. He told the interviewer that he had seen the error of his ways and no longer drank wine or spirits before a show just a few beers. How many? Usually just 10 or 11 pints. Love his idea of restraint.
I think much of his work with The Popes is just as admirable as The Pogues.
Hahaha… it’s mortgage and that’s not the problem. I’ve already written down Rum, Sodomy and the Lash to buy the next time I make it to the music store.
I lost my box of records (!) a while back and was listening to pirated digital copies for a long time but I finally went and bought everything legally again. I felt bad not doing so. I don’t usually feel bad about “borrowing” music this way but with them I do. I want them to get the royalties, I guess.
I got my DVD of If I Should Fall from Grace today, by the way. Can’t wait to watch. There’s a “sing along with the DVD” option. Is that like Poguey Karaoke?? I’m in!
Oh my god. I watched it last night and then watched it again. Stayed up until 2 AM. They did a really good job on that. I was alternately laughing hysterically and crying at the hopelessness of it all.
Favorite parts (going by memory so I hope I’m not messing things up in my recollections):
When they were showing the old concert footage of Rainy Night in Soho which was then juxtaposed to a much more recent version of Shane singing–his voice was so much richer in the later version–interspersed with non-Pogues images running behind the music–wow, it was beautiful. I don’t know if this was part of a music video or just made for this documentary?
The footage behind If I Should Fall From Grace With God–I recognize some of that from various concerts–they should have kept the whole song on the DVD though. I was bummed when they cut it short.
Favorite interview parts (these are paraphrased even though I’m using quotes; it’s just to make it clear where he was speaking).
Shane grinning and saying “I’ve always been a babe magnet. I don’t even have to work at it anymore, because the girls, they all talk, you know what I mean??” (I think he made those little “gabby” motions with his hands–you know, like birds’ beaks flapping.)
Shane reading a review: "(to interviewer) You wanna hear this? (disgustedly) ‘Shane MacGowan and the Pogues’–“first off why is their name the same size as mine? That’s not right.” grin/wink (reads review out loud and comes to) … ‘deceptively simple melodies’ … “oh if they’re so ‘simple’ why don’t you try playing them, cunt.” I totally cracked up at that. (He might have said Popes, not Pogues, which to me would make more sense, given the approximate date of that interview, unless he was reading something really old.)
Shane talking to some girl who has just phoned him up: (answers phone) "Ohhh … hello … (mouths to person offscreen, "it’s Kara!!! (or something; couldn’t understand) … "Yah I’m good, how about you? … (listens) “You wanna know if we have a hot tub??” (incredulous expression) … “No, we just have a sink” … (grin, listens) … “I told you, I’m going to put a Jacuzzi in the barn, sure.” wink
Shane writing an autograph on an Irish Ferry ticket: "(writing, keeps looking up at the kid whose ticket it is) “It’s a joke, okay? I don’t really mean this, it’s just a joke, okay?” (gives ticket back) Kid’s friends: “What did he write?” Kid: “To Oliver Cook, fuck off you snot-nosed English git, love, Shane MacGowan.”
Victoria asking Shane: “What makes you happy?”
Shane: (looks at her adoringly and says softly) “You do.”
It is really amazing how his friends completely love him. I thought the interviews with Nick Cave and Philip Chevron were great, and the footage of how angry he was back then at Sinéad O’Connor (he says he’s grateful to her now for turning him in).
( I forget which, even after looking at titles ). Apparently quite the Celtic music afficianado himself, I guess he was one of those that regarded the press they were getting on the London scene, while “more skilled” traditional Celtic folkies were ignored, as a slap in the face.
Bitch. 