The Pogues: Classic or Dud

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