"There was always a twinkle in the eye, even if it came from the reflection of the ice in his glass...."

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“I’m just following the Irish tradition of songwriting, the Irish way of life, the human way of life. Cram as much pleasure into life, and rail against the pain you have to suffer as a result. Or scream and rant with the pain, and wait for it to be taken away with beautiful pleasure.”

— Shane MacGowan

Shane MacGowan died last night. He was one of the most glorious messes ever produced by rock and roll.

It feels weird to say this but….he was only 65 years old. When he was in his 20s he looked 65, so he was seemingly ageless. In a rock and roll sense, of course.

His band the Pogues combined Irish traditional music with the lash of punk, and with Shane as their front man, slurring his poetic lyrics through a whiskey haze and a toothless mouth, they could be more terrifying than the Sex Pistols (one of the Clancy Brothers once suggested they’d be the ruin of Irish music). He considered being in the Pogues the next best thing to joining the IRA, which he always regretted not doing. His dental situation became so notorious that a BBC documentary was created around his decision to finally get dentures, surely a first. He initially became infamous as an early fan of the Clash, when a post-brawl photo of him was printed in the music press, pogo-ing up and down while his ear lobe, which had just been severed, splattered blood all over his head and shirt. “Cannibalism at Clash Gig” roared the headline, which was pretty routine for them days, actually. This was after he had spent a year in a psychiatric hospital. So there’s that.

“I had my first bottle of Guinness when I was six, my first bottle of whiskey when I was seven. It made the world go mad; it fucking opened my mind to paradise. … I haven’t been sober, dead-straight sober, since I was 14. I’m not interested in being sober. Drinking makes me see things clearly.”

Drinking also required him to come with sub-titles, as he was unintelligible most of the time, frequently breaking into a laugh that sounded like a sleep apnea patient with the machine turned off. He was forever being hit with cars. His lifestyle became a running joke. The Keith Richards of Ireland, somehow managing to stay alive despite a near constant effort to drink (and later drug) himself to death. “I drink because I’m rich — and I haven’t got enough money to buy a racehorse..” was his explanation. But even when he was falling down, he was well read enough to be one step ahead of you. There was always a twinkle in the eye, even if it came from the reflection of the ice in his glass.

He once claimed to have 2 musical idols, Jimi Hendrix and Turlough O’Carolan, the 18th century Irish harper. Is was this sort of thing, along with his calling out James Joyce and and Brendan Behan as his main influences, that made him such great copy in the press, who were looking for something a bit deeper than why a musically illiterate thug like Sid Vicious carved swastikas into his chest and randomly attacked passersby with a bicycle chain. MacGowan was raised and remained a Catholic, but liked to call himself a “free thinking religious fanatic….who sometimes prayed to Buddha.” I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it’s this kind of thinker you want to sit next to at the pub. He’s wrote the late great Christmas song. “Fairytale of New York” will surely climb the charts yet again. “I could have been someone / (Well so could anyone)” remains the best call and response lyric of all time, and should be carved on sarcastic Irish tombstones.

He was also one of the few writers whose lyrics read as well as they sang. Writing lyrics is not writing poetry. Let’s dispense with that up front. They are two separate worlds. But MacGowan straddled them both…

“If I should fall from grace with God
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I'm buried 'neath the sod
But the angels won't receive me
Let me go, boys
Let me go, boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where rivers all run dry”

He found love and a measure of peace in his final years, largely spent in a wheelchair due to a broken hip. He’d been sporadically sober, and been celebrated in tribute concerts by peers like Bono and Sinead O’Connor and Nick Cave. When Bruce Springsteen came to Ireland last spring on his tour, he called on Shane at his home.

MacGowan had developed a sort of unseen halo…..in the end finally more respected for his music than for his rock and roll excesses. He became Ireland’s unofficial poet laurate, no small feat in a word hungry nation. I can’t make up my mind on whether he was endlessly complex, or the simplest man alive.

The words. The music. The booze. The dissipation. All of them cloaked in empathy. Would there have been one without the other?

Does it matter?

Raise your glass and sing. That’s what he did. What a glorious racket he made.

In a bit….

—tf