I have been on Steemit a month now and I haven’t mentioned music once! Shock horror. So I am going to do a blog over the next couple of months about my favourite bands. I love a good front man with a bit of swagger about them . A guy that has personality. a A Mick Jagger , an Axel Rose. I dont know if it’s the Irish in me , I used to be a heavy enough drinker but I love a frontman that’s not afraid of a tipple also. Nobody wants their favourite band to be eating salads and doing yoga before a gig. My first blog is about a fellow Tipperary man. Shane Macgowan. You may know him from the best Christmas song of all time: fairytale in New York but he is a lot more than just one song. He is in fact a lyrical genius. The band were also formed the same year I was born so I had a lot of catching up to do. Shane Macgowan and the Pogues
The Pogues got the name from the Irish language “Póg no thòin” which means “Kiss my arse” in the Orish language Gaelic. They were originally a bunch of excellent Irish trad musicians who met up in London. Put them together with Shane Macgowan who heavily influenced by the sex pistols at the time and you got some band . They were a punk band but they brought their Irish heritage to London and played punk with Irish instruments such as the thin whistle , the banjo and the accordion. They became popular around the London scene with their new kind of Irish trad music with a punk twist. When Irish people heard this , it was unbelievable. Traditional rebel songs with a modern punk sound feel to it. Their live concerts were mad. Rowdy , drink flying everywhere and Macgowan on stage downing bottles of vodka (at one gig in the 90s I had footprints on my shirt “) As a result of this the pogues got big very fast.
Now these songs weren’t just slapped together. Their lyrics were top class. Probably some of the most genius lyrics since Lennon and McCartney. Macgowan had a talent but and we were lucky he produced so many great songs before the drugs got hold of him. Songs like “Rainy Night in SoHo” or “Sally Maclennane”. I have included a live video of the Pogues on top of the pops below. The subtitles during the song are what I love about the pogues. If you listen to the song , it tells a story of a man called Jimmy emigrating and leaving Sally behind .....”Contrary to popular belief Shane is not dead.....
Shane wrote fairytale in New York with Jen Finer(who? A fellow member of the pogues ). They got Kirsty McCall to do the lyrics after trying themselves and some say because Shane had a major crush on her but she was perfect for the song. The song never reached number one in the music charts as it was popped by the pet shop boys”Go West” . This was probably the biggest travesty in music. It finally got to number 1 in 2017 when there was a petition to make it number 1 in the UK.
I once walked into a Dublin pub called the Mercantile and Shane was at the bar drinking a pint water. On closer expection I figured out it was a pint of vodka. I told him that I was from Tipperary and we had a chat. There I was with one of my hero’s shooting the breeze. They say never meet your hero’s but he was one of the nicest guys I ever met. Real down to earth. He was hard to understand through all the years of hard drugs and booze but He still had all his faculties. I didn’t ask for a picture as there were no camera phones when we met but I do cherish that moment.
The pogues worked hard and played hard. Their long and gruelling world tour schedule meant the band didn’t get a break. Coupled with Shane’s drunkenness and drug taking he became very hard to tour with. There is a story that the the pogues were ready to go on stage in Germany and Shane had just drank a bottle of whiskey and was unconscious backstage . The tour manager told a roadie to get another bottle of whiskey and a bucket of water.he told the roadie to throw the bucket over him . He did as he was told . Shane got up. The tour manager then slapped him in the face handed him a bottle of Whiskey and told him to get on stage. Shane went on and the gig was excellent. It was like the tour manager had a protocol for this stuff.
The bed broke up in peculiar circumstances . Shane fell off a train and broke his arm. The rest of the band carried on to the next city but canceled the show. That was the end of the pogues. They were sick of touring. They replaced Shane with Joe Strummer but it wasn’t the same. Shane was the Pogues.
The pogues reformed in 2001 but never produced more material. It was just really a massive tour but less dates. They dissolved again in 2014. Shane makes most of his royalty’s from fairytale in New York. Estimated to be a quarter of a million pounds annually. That’s some pay day. Bet he can’t wait until Christmas!
Artists lined up to collaborate with Shane. He and Nick Cave have made great music. Here he is with the Dubliners(a popular Irish trad band ) singing Irish Rover.
The pogues are a great listen and I recommend a try . Their lyrics are genius and the Irish trad instruments make the music catchy. Shane lives on in London with his long term partner and saint Victoria Clarke and still does gigs here and there.
Shane is my first entry into my front man hall of fame . He fully deserves his place