Best Shane MacGowan quotes

[Michaelo]

Shane has come up with so many great quotes. This is one of my favourites. It comes from a 1991 interview with Melody Maker:
"The most important thing to remember about drunks is that drunks are far more intelligent than non-drunks- they spend a lot of time talking in pubs, unlike workaholics who concentrate on their careers and ambitions, who never develop their higher spiritual values, who never explore the insides of their head like a drunk does."

[Scrapper]

"I'm just following the Irish tradition of songwriting, the Irish way of life, the human way of life. Cram as much pleasure into life, and rail against the pain you have to suffer as a result. Or scream and rant with the pain, and wait for it to be taken away with beautiful pleasure . . ."

[CraigBatty]

Maith thú Scrapper! Now THERE'S a quote I want on a t-shirt....
Gods bless Shane, I've said it before and I'll say it again and again and again... Shane IS Behan reborn. Just involves some tricky retrospective astral-travelling.

[Simon Maguire]

Lets See.

From T&C 1988.

"Everyone drinks..........Well, unless they don't."

'I'd rather be remembered in the Irish Tradition than the pop tradition."

(Whilest clearly drunk)
"I've been drinking since 10 O'Clock in the morning and I'm not drunk.....I may be relaxed but I'm not drunk."
(Trying to convience the genral public that Irish people drink and drink but rarely get pissed )


From If I should fall from Grace 2001:
"I've been a babe magnet for quite a while now."

"Is Bill Gates the new Jesus Christ?"

At Metor Awards 2006:
"Well done, you've managed to disgrace yourselfs once again."
To the crowd at The Point, Dublin.

A drink with Shane MacGowan 2000.
You had a break between half-three - no four o'clock - cause it would take you half an hour to clear up; so between four o'clock and half five. So I used to dash home and drink a bottle of vodka.
(Shane on his break from work)

I mean, not sex, you know. but the child was too young to have sex, I was allowed to smoke, drink and bet.
(Shane on his moral upbringing)

On The Frank Skinner Show 2004.
Yes we're touring...let's see Glasgow, Newscastle, Birmingham, Manchester & Brixton...every shithole God ever put in England.
(Shane 'Advertises' The Pogues Christmas tour 2004)


This is my favourite
An Internet Article posted on the forum 2005.
The British press have been giving me six months to live for the past
twenty years they must be getting pissed off interviewing me by now.

There are many more I can't remember I also liked the line from Spider from T&C Try some Head & Shoulders When the fake snow was falling during Fairytale of new York.

[Dosgatas]

My favorite Shane quote:

"Naah, I don't like kids. It's not just that they're smelly and noisy but unfortunately you have to have them in the same room as you, otherwise they'll hurt themselves."

My sentiments exactly.

[Noel Kenny]

Back around 1992, I met Shane for a drink in Joe Corcoran's snug. we were having a quiet jar when some asshole stuck his head in from the bar and asked Shane to sing a song. Shane said "Not now, maybe later." This went on for about a half an hour and we were getting pissed off as we hadn't met for a while and had a few things to talk about.

Shane: "What do you do for a living?"

Asshole: "I'm a carpenter"

Shane: "Make me a fucking table"

[Simon Maguire]

Back around 1992, I met Shane for a drink in Joe Corcoran's snug. we were having a quiet jar when some asshole stuck his head in from the bar and asked Shane to sing a song. Shane said "Not now, maybe later." This went on for about a half an hour and we were getting pissed off as we hadn't met for a while and had a few things to talk about.

Shane: "What do you do for a living?"

Asshole: "I'm a carpenter"

Shane: "Make me a fucking table"

[CraigBatty]

...
Asshole: "I'm a carpenter"

Shane: "Make me a fucking table"

Laugh? I nearly shat a cat in a hat! Gods I love that man. Lend ten million squid, so's I can buy him a vineyard.

[Heather]

Lets See.

From T&C 1988.

"Everyone drinks..........Well, unless they don't."

(Whilest clearly drunk)
"I've been drinking since 10 O'Clock in the morning and I'm not drunk.....I may be relaxed but I'm not drunk."
(Trying to convience the genral public that Irish people drink and drink but rarely get pissed )

There are many more I can't remember I also liked the line from Spider from T&C Try some Head & Shoulders When the fake snow was falling during Fairytale of new York.

I like these ones particularly.

[Simon Maguire]

There are so many I've been trying to think of, maybe Philip & Spider could give a few lines from some conversations that you've had with Shane, that were never recorded or made public. That would be fantastic.

[georgecat]

This is a brilliant thread.

[Paddy Rolling Clone]

Back around 1992, I met Shane for a drink in Joe Corcoran's snug. we were having a quiet jar when some asshole stuck his head in from the bar and asked Shane to sing a song. Shane said "Not now, maybe later." This went on for about a half an hour and we were getting pissed off as we hadn't met for a while and had a few things to talk about.

Shane: "What do you do for a living?"

Asshole: "I'm a carpenter"

Shane: "Make me a fucking table"

Class, fucking class.

Somebody once asked Shane MacGowan why he drank, and he gave about the best answer this writer ever heard. He said he drank in order to experience Paradise. Today though, the singer is in a more prosaic mood.

“I drink because I’m thirsty,” he says, then slurps some more sake.

[Behan]

“The legal lubricant for popular music in every country I’ve ever been in, apart from Arab countries, is booze and the ideas come down from punk where just because you’re in a band, doesn’t mean you’re anything special, anybody can do it” …"We used to get pissed with the audience and then just walk onto the stage and start playing.”- Mark Radcliffe's BBC Radio2 show: Pogue Mahone

[Quincy Dan]

This wasn't from a newspaper or anything, but when I saw him with the Popes at the Guinness Fleadh (spelling?) in Boston a few years ago. he came up on the stage and was scowling with unbridled hate at the band. He took the mike and spit "The band wouldn't let me take a piss backstage. I'm bursting for a piss."

[Seven Towers]

Another concert quote with The Popes- it was May of 2002 at the 9:30 Club in DC. It was the first night of a brief US tour, and Shane's first show in the US after Sept. 11th. Shane staggers out to the mic with his usual drink and cig to star the show, and barks out, "HOW DOES IT FEEL TO LIVE IN A COUNTRY FULL OF MASS MURDERERS?" Given the context, I thought it was one of the funniest greetings I had ever heard. As usual, Shane managed to turn the tables on us.