Shane McGowan died yesterday. Given his lifestyle, it might surprise many that he reached 65, but a sad loss, nevertheless. From the very beginning he was a maverick, a drunkard, a visionary, a traditionalist. A man who gathered round him a like-minded and talented group of Anglo Irish musicians fusing Irish folk music with the punk ethos.
Rum, Sodomy & the Lash was the Pogues’ second album and their breakthrough. Produced by Elvis Costello (allegedly showing more interest in bassist Cait O’Riordan, than the rest of the band), it’s a more accessible set of songs than their debut.
We saw the band at Margate Winter Gardens soon after this album, a riotous romp of boozing and dancing, with an encore whose songs were determined by the realisation that “Shane’s locked himself in the toilet”.
Opening song The Sick Bed Of Cuchuliann almost encapsulates McGowan and The Pogues in one song. Furious, foul of language, yet you find yourself asking if it’s an original or traditional. And that was part of the band’s genius, taking modern themes and making them sound traditional. The Old Main Drag is slower, at a distance less appealing and less powerful musically, leading into Wild Cats Of Kilkenny, an instrumental on traditional Irish instruments, which owes more than a passing nod to Pink Floyd’s One Of These Days.
Cait O’Riordan takes vocal duties off Shane for the traditional I’m A Man You Don’t Meet Everyday - it’s a nice song, easy to enjoy if lacking the impact of others here. And the song’s weaknesses are clearly exposed when McGowan takes back the microphone for the marvellous A Pair Of Brown Eyes, a gently rolling tale, which only acts as a hors d’oeuvre for the frantic, uplifting Sally MacLennane, one of the Pogues’ finest moments, which ends the first half of the album.
I’m going to break with conventional opinion for the second half. I’m not a lover of Ewan MacColl’s Dirty Old Town, and while this beats the previous version I was familiar with (yes, it was the Spinners) hands down, it’s not one of my Pogues favourites. Neither, frankly, is the traditional song, Jesse James, given a lively delivery, but not really for me, and Spider Stacey’s vocals do the song no favours. Navigator is a tribute to the Victorian Irish navvies, a slower song, pleasant enough but nothing amazing. Billy’s Bones takes the pace back up again, a decent song by MacGowan, then the mood is left high with Gentleman Soldier, before the final song on the original album, a stunning version of Eric Bogle’s The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, starting with MacGowan almost acapella with only a quiet banjo for accompaniment, the rest of the band gradually entering - a fantastic end to a great album. Although for tear-jerking, check out June Tabor’s unaccompanied version.
This album rightly brought the Pogues to music lovers’ attention, and forty years on, while there’s the same power in many of the songs, it's mostly in those penned by MacGowan. Rest in peace, Shane
4* - a poignant reminder of what we lost this week
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