The Pogues’ Gaelic punk
Marty Lipp
November 12, 2006
The Pogues weren't the first to marry the rebelliousness of rock with the rebelliousness of Irish music, but they certainly brought the best gifts to the party.
The band rose and fell like a burst of fireworks, lighting the pop firmament with five brilliant albums that have been re-released by Rhino with additional liner notes and bonus cuts.
The Pogues were one shot punk nihilism, one shot Irish populism, a potent mix with Shane MacGowan's scabrous poetry mythologized by the band's precise and powerful musicianship - pennywhistles never rocked so hard.
The snaggle-toothed Mac-Gowan snarled out lyrics as if hanging from the stout arm of a bouncer at closing time, but, unlike most singers in punk bands, he wasn't simply cursing everything and nothing. His swearing was laced with empathy and humor. MacGowan's four-letter antiestablishmentarianism railed against the injustices of life, both big and small.
No polemicists, band members showed their contempt for the comfortable by completely ignoring them. Instead, The Pogues (their name a shortened, cruder version of
"kiss my rear" in Gaelic) were chroniclers of impolite society, with death and drink always close at hand.
In one song, MacGowan sings: "... they'll take you from this place you're in and stick you in a box/then they'll take you to Cloughprior and shove you in the ground/but you'll stick your head back out and shout we'll have another round."
With their first album, 1984's "Red Roses for Me," The Pogues arrived almost fully formed. Not only had they fused two incongruous genres - punk and traditional Irish music - but they invented a world that seemed to emerge from crumbling, sepia-toned photos.
With their second, "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash," the group went beyond just flirting with greatness. The 1985 album brimmed with stories of hardscrabble life, but played with an exuberance that seemed to say "it's a bloody, rough world, but we'll never go down." The band members could barely constrain themselves, though they burnished a new facet on "And the Band Played Waltzing Mathilda," a powerful anti-war song about an Aussie fighting at Gallipoli in WWI.
The album probably would have been considered their masterpiece, if not for their next one, 1988's "If I Should Fall From Grace with God." According to the illuminating liner notes, the members thought by this time that there was nothing they couldn't do - and rightfully so. MacGowan's stories were again both heartbreaking and hysterically funny, their sound widening to include music from outside Ireland. On the raucous "Fiesta," they created the rowdiest of parties, but not one of the hyperkinetic notes was out of place.
The album also produced their unlikely Christmas hit, "Fairy Tale of New York," with MacGowan sparring with the late Kirsty MacColl. They played an old couple of alcoholics whose mutual hate and love had been in an ever-escalating race over the years. The song was both touching and scathing, the broken-down lovers lashing out, but only because they can, their bond being ultimately unbreakable.
By their fourth album, 1989's "Peace and Love," the band was having trouble keeping their ever-expanding lineup together. MacGowan's alcohol and drug use reportedly sidelined him more as the other members stepped forward. The Pogues had an even-broader palette, and it was still a mighty band, but the majestic fury was replaced at times with a blandly handsome earnestness.
Their fifth album, "Hell's Ditch" (1990), continued to explore new sounds, producing many fine songs, but the band members, including MacGowan, occasionally lost touch with the urgency of their earlier work. It's that fist-pumping energy brilliantly conceptualized that made The Pogues so thrilling.
Looking back, maybe it wasn't a bouncer that MacGowan sensed at the scruff of his neck. Death certainly was a frequent theme in its songs, so maybe the last call The Pogues were shouting down was really The Last Call. At their inspired best, they sprung to life and rallied themselves and listeners for one more toast, one more tune, making it fast and making it last.
Marty Lipp can be reached at
martylipp@hotmail.com.
