by RoddyRuddy Wed Feb 28, 2007 8:27 pm
Quote text only Page 28 RocknReel (typos/ spelling mistakes are from scanner not the mag)
...".. The first phrases you learn in foreign language are usually dull but useful things such as “Hello”, “Thank you” or “My name is.”. My debut sentence in Spanish, however, turns out to he “Please can you help me find a wheelchair for rny friend?”
It’s Decemher, 2005, and rny travelling companion, the irishman in the big black coat, is meant to be in London today to rehearse with his band for a big Christmas tour. In fact, he’s with me in Tangier, Morocco, after a week’s holiday together We’re on our way back. Problem is, an airport official will not let us on the plane. “You can go,” he says, indicating me. “But not your friend. He is clearly too drunk.”
“He’s always like that. Really He’s well known for seeming this way Seeming, not being.”
“Listen, my friend. I know when someone is drunk.”
I want to tell him that this isn’t just ‘someone’. This is Shane MacCowan, lead singer with The Pogues, co-author of their festive classic with Kirsty MacColl, ‘Fairytale Of New York’, which was recently voted the Best Christmas Song Ever by various corners of the media. His narne is known to millions of strangers, often associated with a few cartoonish tags of received opinion: Irish. Bad Teeth. Famous. Drunk.
It’s true that Shane tends to stagger when he walks and slurs when he speaks. What fewer people realise is that these attributes have been in place for decades, at varying degrees of severity This is just the way he is. The times when he’s entirely lucid, strangers still think he’s drunk. The crucial difference between him and the sort of stereotypical drunkard who gets thrown off planes (and rightfully so) is down to a matter of one thing:
control. Having shared a number of flight with him, I can confirm Shane’s airborne behaviour is limited to three modes only: talking, reading and sleeping. The Shane MacCowan I know is one of the most well- read, open-minded, kind-hearted, funniest and gentlest men I’ve ever met in rny life.
“I’m not going on the plane without him,” I bark nobly feeling my halo ascend. Though any notions of heroic selflessness are rather compromised by the thought of what the other Pogoes and their fans might do to me, should I return to London Shane-less.
“Comeback tomorrow.”
I wonder what the hell to do next. I know full well it would he pointless staying in Tangier another night and trying again in the morning: Mr MacCowan would be the same. So I phone someone in London who has known him much longer than me. This can’t he the first time he’s been thrown off a flight, I muse. My saviour advises me to take the scenic route. Get the ferry to Algeciras, catch a taxi up the Spanish coast to Malaga, hop on a plane to Stansted. And this time I should put Mr MacCowan in a wheelchair before boarding the plane. No one ever questions a wheelchair Hence the need to learn the appropriate phrase in Spanish.
The advice is spot-on: the ferry staff are far less censorious. Not only do they let us onboard unhindered, they also point us in the direction of the ferry bar Shane makes it back to London later than scheduled, but at
least it’s the same day A week later, I find myself to be a ghost within the news: “The first rehearsal for the Christmas tour We don’t expect to be seeing Shane MacCowan. He’s in Morocco, or on his way back from Morocco. It’s a mystery how he gets there without help.It’s a further mystery how begets hack.” (Pogues aceordionistjames Eearnley’s diary The Independent, 16 December, 2005.)
Now it’s September, 2006, and once again I’m sharing a few drinks with Shane,talking about recent adventures like the one above, and how he feels about Being Shane MacCowan these days. We’re at his favourite hostelry in London, The Boogaloo in Highgate. It’s the nearest bar to my own home, svhieh is how I got to know him a couple of years ago. This interview for Rock’n’ReeI is therefore biased: as a friend I can’t possibly be impartial. But just as the best biography to date, A Drink With Shane
MacGowan (2001), was written by his then girlfriend Victoria Mary Clarke, replacing neutrality with an insider’s glimpse, I like to think I’m following in a tradition. Which is something Shane knows all about.
“In Irish pubs, ‘Fairytale Of NewYork’ has become a traditional number, up there with ‘Danny Boy’ or ‘The Fields ofAthenry’ or whatever .People sing it together even in the middle of summer So I’m now like the writers of all those other standards, except I’m not anonymous... or dead. I feel great about that song, and how it’s taken on a life of its own, though the beauty of the original record really helped. It’s one of those rare things in life where everything comes together and works at the same time. But the credit has to be shared with Jem Finer, who co-wrote the music, and everyone else involved in the record from the whole band to the string arrangements by Fiachra Trench, to Kirsty MacColl who is somewhere else now. She recorded her own vocals separately at the time, but then she went on the road with us afterwards so I got
.........."
Quote end
Quote text only Page 28 RocknReel (typos/ spelling mistakes are from scanner not the mag)
...".. The first phrases you learn in foreign language are usually dull but useful things such as “Hello”, “Thank you” or “My name is.”. My debut sentence in Spanish, however, turns out to he “Please can you help me find a wheelchair for rny friend?”
It’s Decemher, 2005, and rny travelling companion, the irishman in the big black coat, is meant to be in London today to rehearse with his band for a big Christmas tour. In fact, he’s with me in Tangier, Morocco, after a week’s holiday together We’re on our way back. Problem is, an airport official will not let us on the plane. “You can go,” he says, indicating me. “But not your friend. He is clearly too drunk.”
“He’s always like that. Really He’s well known for seeming this way Seeming, not being.”
“Listen, my friend. I know when someone is drunk.”
I want to tell him that this isn’t just ‘someone’. This is Shane MacCowan, lead singer with The Pogues, co-author of their festive classic with Kirsty MacColl, ‘Fairytale Of New York’, which was recently voted the Best Christmas Song Ever by various corners of the media. His narne is known to millions of strangers, often associated with a few cartoonish tags of received opinion: Irish. Bad Teeth. Famous. Drunk.
It’s true that Shane tends to stagger when he walks and slurs when he speaks. What fewer people realise is that these attributes have been in place for decades, at varying degrees of severity This is just the way he is. The times when he’s entirely lucid, strangers still think he’s drunk. The crucial difference between him and the sort of stereotypical drunkard who gets thrown off planes (and rightfully so) is down to a matter of one thing:
control. Having shared a number of flight with him, I can confirm Shane’s airborne behaviour is limited to three modes only: talking, reading and sleeping. The Shane MacCowan I know is one of the most well- read, open-minded, kind-hearted, funniest and gentlest men I’ve ever met in rny life.
“I’m not going on the plane without him,” I bark nobly feeling my halo ascend. Though any notions of heroic selflessness are rather compromised by the thought of what the other Pogoes and their fans might do to me, should I return to London Shane-less.
“Comeback tomorrow.”
I wonder what the hell to do next. I know full well it would he pointless staying in Tangier another night and trying again in the morning: Mr MacCowan would be the same. So I phone someone in London who has known him much longer than me. This can’t he the first time he’s been thrown off a flight, I muse. My saviour advises me to take the scenic route. Get the ferry to Algeciras, catch a taxi up the Spanish coast to Malaga, hop on a plane to Stansted. And this time I should put Mr MacCowan in a wheelchair before boarding the plane. No one ever questions a wheelchair Hence the need to learn the appropriate phrase in Spanish.
The advice is spot-on: the ferry staff are far less censorious. Not only do they let us onboard unhindered, they also point us in the direction of the ferry bar Shane makes it back to London later than scheduled, but at
least it’s the same day A week later, I find myself to be a ghost within the news: “The first rehearsal for the Christmas tour We don’t expect to be seeing Shane MacCowan. He’s in Morocco, or on his way back from Morocco. It’s a mystery how he gets there without help.It’s a further mystery how begets hack.” (Pogues aceordionistjames Eearnley’s diary The Independent, 16 December, 2005.)
Now it’s September, 2006, and once again I’m sharing a few drinks with Shane,talking about recent adventures like the one above, and how he feels about Being Shane MacCowan these days. We’re at his favourite hostelry in London, The Boogaloo in Highgate. It’s the nearest bar to my own home, svhieh is how I got to know him a couple of years ago. This interview for Rock’n’ReeI is therefore biased: as a friend I can’t possibly be impartial. But just as the best biography to date, A Drink With Shane
MacGowan (2001), was written by his then girlfriend Victoria Mary Clarke, replacing neutrality with an insider’s glimpse, I like to think I’m following in a tradition. Which is something Shane knows all about.
“In Irish pubs, ‘Fairytale Of NewYork’ has become a traditional number, up there with ‘Danny Boy’ or ‘The Fields ofAthenry’ or whatever .People sing it together even in the middle of summer So I’m now like the writers of all those other standards, except I’m not anonymous... or dead. I feel great about that song, and how it’s taken on a life of its own, though the beauty of the original record really helped. It’s one of those rare things in life where everything comes together and works at the same time. But the credit has to be shared with Jem Finer, who co-wrote the music, and everyone else involved in the record from the whole band to the string arrangements by Fiachra Trench, to Kirsty MacColl who is somewhere else now. She recorded her own vocals separately at the time, but then she went on the road with us afterwards so I got
.........."
Quote end
