Shane McGowan Dies Aged 65

[Hobo]

 

[VerbalPuke]

Bummer. I just saw that he was in the hospital but didn't know he was in such rough shape. The Pogues were a special band to me for a long time so this sucks. 

[Hobo]

I feel like he had been in rough shape for quite some time based on anything I had ever heard.

I wasn't tremendously into his work  but it's sort of inescapable living in Ireland.

With Sinead O'Connor and Christy Dignam from Aslan dying this year too feels a few names of an area of Irish music have gone.

[METALMAN]

Sad news, but yeah, I feel like I've been hearing stories about him being on death's door for about as long as I was aware of his existence.

I wasn't the biggest fan. I really liked Rum, Sodomy and the Lash - someone I lived with in first year at uni listened to it a hell of a lot so I've got fond memories of hanging around with that playing in the background. I wasn't a huge fan of the music beyond that. For a band that is portrayed as rough and ready with a "punk" attitude they were far worse than many of their peers at avoiding OTT 80s production techniques. A lot of the music is sugary and cloying in a way that I don't really like. 

[Skummy]

8 minutes ago, METALMAN said:

For a band that is portrayed as rough and ready with a "punk" attitude they were far worse than many of their peers at avoiding OTT 80s production techniques. A lot of the music is sugary and cloying in a way that I don't really like. 

A couple of their albums really suffer for that, and it's a shame, because there's some fantastic stuff absolutely buried under bad production.

I absolutely love The Pogues, though. I got massively into them when I was around 19-21 or so, and still think Shane at the height of his powers was one of the best lyricists around - I'd think that if all he'd ever written was Rainy Night In Soho and The Old Main Drag, but there's just so much there.

When I got into him, I was really deep in the kind of Beat generation bullshit idea about drink and drugs being mind-expanding, and how there's wisdom in old drunks and all that, and that probably played a part in how much I got into MacGowan, and also into Tom Waits, and a few other artists too, even though at their best they're not about that at all. Now, I always think of the Alan Moore line, "William Blake said that the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom, which was naughty of him, because it doesn't" - but listening to the more booze-soaked Pogues songs now, I don't really think he does glorify or romanticise any of it (though, by his solo material, that's pretty much all he ever did). Their songs are earthy and quite unpleasant, and just singing about the world he knew and lived in, there's very little about any of it that makes me think you're supposed to find the subject of his songs aspirational or romantic or anything like that. 

Whatever. He was brilliant. I love his voice, love his lyrics. There's a lot of shite in the back catalogue, but his best stands up against anyone's best.  

[Hobo]

Not knowing his history, I still remember being shocked the first time I ever heard Shane McGowan speak because I assumed he would talk in a Dublin accent.
 

[Hobo]

https://rip.ie/death-notice/shane-macgowan-tipperary-nenagh-537819

Shane McGowan's death notice is up on Ireland's premier death notices website

[Hobo]

 

[Lint]

 

[Liam]

Dirty Old Town is genuinely one of my favourite songs of all time.

[Daniel Bryan]

On 08/12/2023 at 17:45, Hobo said:

 

The family dancing during the performance of Fairytale of New York was really touching.