What Is Your Favourite Line/Phrase In A Pogues Song??

[Guest]

White city is a fav of mine

Ah the paddies and frogs
Came gamble on the dogs
came to gamble not long ago
ah the torn up ticket stubs
from a hundred thousand mugs
now washed up like dead dreams in rain

[in the ghetto]

felines and sea lions

[old barney greyheron]

'You're the measure of my dreams..the measure of my dreams.'

[chinaski]

"And now I know...it's the same...wherever you go."


that's my fav from one side of my personality. I've got another from my other side...

[SluggerOToole]

"I'll build my world around you
I'll bless the day that I found you
I'll stand beside you, I'll never leave
Or tell you all those lies
That you'd never believe

.......Haunted

[brandyandhalfcorona]

I fell and tumbled in the hungry grass
That tells the tale of a terrible past
I screamed and rolled and dreamt I fell
Down in the depths of a freezing hell

My grandparents in Cavan talk about 'the hungry grass'. They have a few acres of land away from their farm at home, it's sort of secluded and you have to cross five or six fields in from the road to get to it.
Anyway, they say that even if you've just had dinner, if you walk over those fields, you will come home starving. The old people, they say, used to call it 'the hungry grass' because victims of the famine are supposedly buried in there, buried where they fell.
Love the lyric too.

My current favourite is this, from More Pricks Than Kicks.

But it's more pricks
than kicks
That's what it is
I'm a scumbag,
a lout, thats the way
things are

Brilliant, stark contrast to the loved up, dewy-eyed, weary reminsiscing of the first verse.

I also love Rake at the Gates of Hell and the line 'Money still gleams in my hand like a light' from Bottle of Smoke.

[Noel Kenny]

I fell and tumbled in the hungry grass
That tells the tale of a terrible past
I screamed and rolled and dreamt I fell
Down in the depths of a freezing hell

My grandparents in Cavan talk about 'the hungry grass'. They have a few acres of land away from their farm at home, it's sort of secluded and you have to cross five or six fields in from the road to get to it.
Anyway, they say that even if you've just had dinner, if you walk over those fields, you will come home starving. The old people, they say, used to call it 'the hungry grass' because victims of the famine are supposedly buried in there, buried where they fell.
Love the lyric too.

My current favourite is this, from More Pricks Than Kicks.

But it's more pricks
than kicks
That's what it is
I'm a scumbag,
a lout, thats the way
things are

Brilliant, stark contrast to the loved up, dewy-eyed, weary reminsiscing of the first verse.

I also love Rake at the Gates of Hell and the line 'Money still gleams in my hand like a light' from Bottle of Smoke.

'My grandparents in Cavan talk about 'the hungry grass'. They have a few acres of land away from their farm at home, it's sort of secluded and you have to cross five or six fields in from the road to get to it.'

My uncle tells that story too. There are many hungry fields in North West Tipperary.

There is also a 'Hungry Rock' near Coolaney in County Sligo. It looks a bit like the holy stone on Father Ted. One morning after I passed it , myself and my workmate devoured spicey potato wedges and sausages before we tiled a kitchen. We ppassed it again on the way home. we stopped at another petrol station and ate more spoicey wedges and sausages. Then we went to a pub and ate a huge dinner,

[pogues24]

"And it's how are yah kid
and what's your name,
but how did you bloody know"

From A Pair of Brown Eyes

[Jabba69]

"And as the sunset came to meet the evening on a hill,
I told you I always loved you, I always did I always will"


I was never very good at english or literature in school, but when I first heard this line, I had an image of what the words were saying, and all that 'imagery' they tought me made more sense!
Beautiful stuff

Theres loads of others, but this is the one that always sticks out

[CraigBatty]

Currently torn between:

"Did you see an old woman with a comb in her hand..." - Always good to see a Bean Sidhe (banshee) reference around the place.

"...some of them fell into Heaven, some of them fell into Hell." - For old friends, here and gone.

&

"...and in Brendan Behan's footsteps I danced up and down the street." I can see him, shirt ruffled, collar askew, red-cheeked, singing his heart out... one of my favourite song images.

[Sheepskin_Tearaway]

to the greatest little boozer and to sally maclennane

[Irishbookish]

"And as the sunset came to meet the evening on a hill,
I told you I always loved you, I always did I always will..."

One of my favourites as well. There are too many to list, but hm...maybe these;

'I gently rise and softly call, good night and joy be with you all.' - Parting Glass (who actually wrote this?)

Thousands are sailing, again across the ocean... - Thousands are Sailing. (So poignant is this that the imagery emerges without so many words from a place I cannot name.)

'Their mark on this land is still seen and still laid' - Navigator

'Heard the cards being dealt, and the rosary called and a fiddle playing Sean Dun na nGall' - The Broad Majestic Shannon

'They live in the small ring, on the trees on the hill, up at the top of the field...' - Sit Down By The Fire

[firehazard]

'I gently rise and softly call, good night and joy be with you all.' - Parting Glass (who actually wrote this?)

That would be young Mr Trad, wouldn't it?

I love the way that random lines and phrases from Pogues songs take residence in the head from time to time, and seem to pop up at appropriate (and sometimes inappropriate) moments. It's the skill and subtlety and downright poeticism of the lyric-writing, and the fact that the words find so many echoes in the situations and events and emotions of the lives we live.

Anyway, over the weekend it was mainly:
"...the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old"

And then sometimes the line about the robots.

[Irishbookish]

Because the inspiration for a lot of these songs come from a place deep down combining history and ancestry, not just using reference points from everyday experience, it's far easier to not only relate to them but to feel a part of where they originate...if that makes any sense at all at all.

Our weekend was kind of like this: "We walked him to the station in the rain, and we kissed him as we put him on the train." PS I love the combination of words and melody of that song.

[BelfastsLittlesHobo]

"This land was always ours it was the proud land of our fathers it belongs to us and them not to any of the others`'
"When I 1st came to London I was only 16"
All of Brown eyes
All of thousands
All of Rainy Night

Sorry for being vague but there all so good