RIP Shane MacGowan
- Thread starter seeformiles
- Start date
story
Changing the facts
It’s fine. I’ve not said anything out of turn. If anything, it corrects an apprehension.
I said the same thing on her RIP thread,
I think his songs are why he is/was brilliant.
He was cautioned for posession of drugs...maybe twice. He never harmed anyone.
Stop being so feckin judgmental.
I think you are barking up the wrong tree.
People in Ireland absolutely loved him..regardless of his drinking. He chatted with locals at his pub and was a decent human being..he had a sense of humour and absolutely no pretensions. He was who he was. And he treated everyone he met well. He couldn't pass a person begging on the street without having a decent chat and handing them a fist of money to help.
So don't take his alcoholism and make it his total personhood. He was multi faceted. Highly intelligent and a decent kind human being. Would that we all will have that epitaph.
lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
I'm not being judgemental about Shane. At all. I'm being judgemental about how some people see him as a legend as much because of his capacity for drunkenness as his lyrics.
story
Changing the facts
Although I’m not sure that’s quite true lazythursday or at least not any more.
The 80s/early 90s was a strange country.
I remember a competition about who broke the bar at the Brixton Academy. *It went back and forth between the Pogues and another band, back and forth back and forth. The other band won more often. It was somehow a measure of ..… something that seemed important at the time. But it is patently absurd and anyone /everyone now would agree.
*whose audience broke the record of most money poured into the coffers.
I think the Pogues won in the end, only because they had the last gig before the audience finally decided to curtail their own habits / the band broke up for good. Otherwise it would have been an endless boring repetitive cycle of old bald blokes with beer bellies using this as their way to keep winning. sad. ridiculous.
The 80s/early 90s was a strange country.
I remember a competition about who broke the bar at the Brixton Academy. *It went back and forth between the Pogues and another band, back and forth back and forth. The other band won more often. It was somehow a measure of ..… something that seemed important at the time. But it is patently absurd and anyone /everyone now would agree.
*whose audience broke the record of most money poured into the coffers.
I think the Pogues won in the end, only because they had the last gig before the audience finally decided to curtail their own habits / the band broke up for good. Otherwise it would have been an endless boring repetitive cycle of old bald blokes with beer bellies using this as their way to keep winning. sad. ridiculous.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
I always loved the Pogues.
Had naught to do with London and never saw them, but they did produce the definitive interpretation of an ode to Salford: "Dirty Old Town".
My grandparents were Irish immigrants, so I guess it all strikes a chord - I always thought "White City" was about Manchester (white city) until I was corrected......
Had naught to do with London and never saw them, but they did produce the definitive interpretation of an ode to Salford: "Dirty Old Town".
My grandparents were Irish immigrants, so I guess it all strikes a chord - I always thought "White City" was about Manchester (white city) until I was corrected......
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
It was the NYPD (bag) pipe band, which did exist. And they didn't do it to a playback track, so to get them all singing in time they used the 'Micky Mouse Club*" theme tune.
When you know that you can actually add the words to their singing...
* The one that goes "M. I. C, K.E.Y, M.O.U.S.E"
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
There have been some contrasting posts in this thread, disagreements even. But, fwiw, I think they've all been from a good and sincere place.
deeyo
hurled unheard to this world.
young shane w the nipple erectors -79(?)
pogues recording w steve earle -88
'I was already halfway across the Atlantic nursing a hangover that registered about a 7.4 on the Richter scale. It took me about a week to recover and I'm sure some of the damage that I sustained that week was structural and permanent. But it was worth it. For four minutes on four consecutive nights in the Spring of 1987 I had been a Pogue.'
mature shane, covering hank williams w the popes -00
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
Gladly - but I don’t know how. Any help gratefully received
story
Changing the facts
Gladly - but I don’t know how. Any help gratefully received
Go to your OP
Look along to the right. At the far end you’ll see three dots and a little downward arrow in a horizontal row.
Click on the three dots and you’ll see the option to edit.
Click on that and go to edit title.
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
Thank you - sorted!
Numbers
an ting!
Very bittersweet documentary, brilliant and tragic.watched 'crock of gold' this evening
hadn't seen him on telly or anything for a while -and
at how ill he looked
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
This is a pretty good analysis (apologies if posted before but I’ve just read it)
Shane MacGowan: A unifying Irish-English voice, in time of bombs and bullets
Shane MacGowan gave voice to an Irish-English generation, writes author Joseph O'Connor.
www.bbc.co.uk
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
Sinead's brother writing there, believe it or not.This is a pretty good analysis (apologies if posted before but I’ve just read it)
Shane MacGowan: A unifying Irish-English voice, in time of bombs and bullets
Shane MacGowan gave voice to an Irish-English generation, writes author Joseph O'Connor.www.bbc.co.uk
hitmouse
entreprenulsoip critical thinking
I was wondering if anyone had posted Sally MacLennane yet, see Dotty and Idris sort of beat me to it within the first few posts, but it does work really well as a requiem, or epitaph or whatever:
My mam also sent me this:
www.telegraph.co.uk
Dunno how well it sits with the heavier discussion over the last few pages, but was also just thinking about how Transmetropolitan is the only song I can think of that mentions drinking cider in a park. Big part of teenage life for me and I'm sure many other people, but not an experience you see depicted that often.
My mam also sent me this:
Shane MacGowan’s last secret revealed: he loved doing The Telegraph’s crossword
Widow of The Pogues singer reveals his affection for Royal family and how people ‘would be horrified’ to see him do Telegraph puzzle
www.telegraph.co.uk
Dunno how well it sits with the heavier discussion over the last few pages, but was also just thinking about how Transmetropolitan is the only song I can think of that mentions drinking cider in a park. Big part of teenage life for me and I'm sure many other people, but not an experience you see depicted that often.
trashpony
Hag
Nick Cave on Shane McGowan:
“I remember standing side of stage at the concert in Dublin for Shane’s 60th birthday, and feeling kind of agitated and nervous about performing.
I was surrounded by all of these artists doing beautiful versions of Shane’s songs and, I don’t know, I guess I was also feeling a bit out of sorts that evening.
I saw Sinéad O’Connor standing slightly separate from everyone else, half hidden by the curtain, gazing at the floor, looking fierce and intense.
I didn’t really know Sinéad, I’d met her a few times here and there, and maybe chatted briefly with her, but I had always liked her uniqueness, her raging spirit, her disagreeableness, her beautifulness and, of course, her celestial voice.
Sinéad looked up and caught my eye, smiled, and walked over and hugged me. I’m not sure why, but I was terribly moved by her gesture. She was so warm and giving and kind in that moment. I was unaware quite how precious a moment it would turn out to be.
Before I could say anything to her, I was being ushered on to the stage to sing Shane’s song, ‘Summer in Siam’, with him. I think it was the penultimate song of the show, and it would be the first time that evening that Shane himself would take to the stage to perform.
I walked on and sang these most simple and poignant words –
When it's summer in Siam
And the moon is full of rainbows
When it's summer in Siam
Though we go through many changes
When it's summer in Siam
Then all I really know is that I truly am
In the summer in Siam
Shane’s wife, Victoria, then pushed Shane on in a wheelchair and, well, I know I should be talking about the pure unbridled genius of Shane MacGowan and how he was the greatest songwriter of his generation, with the most terrifyingly beautiful of voices — all of which is true — but what struck me at that moment was the extraordinary display of love for this man, so powerful and deep, that poured forth from the audience.
It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced, and in that instant it brought to mind the short poem by Raymond Carver —
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
Shane was not revered just for his manifold talents but also loved for himself alone. A beautiful and damaged man, who embodied a kind of purity and innocence and generosity and spiritual intelligence unlike any other.
Sinéad once said of Shane, ‘He is an angel. An actual angel’. Whether or not this is the case, who’s to say? But Shane was blessed with an uncommon spirit of goodness and a deep sense of what is true, which was strangely amplified in his brokenness, his humanness.
We can say of him most certainly, ‘he was beloved on the earth,’ and Sinéad too — truly beloved and greatly missed, both.”
Love, Nick Cave.
“I remember standing side of stage at the concert in Dublin for Shane’s 60th birthday, and feeling kind of agitated and nervous about performing.
I was surrounded by all of these artists doing beautiful versions of Shane’s songs and, I don’t know, I guess I was also feeling a bit out of sorts that evening.
I saw Sinéad O’Connor standing slightly separate from everyone else, half hidden by the curtain, gazing at the floor, looking fierce and intense.
I didn’t really know Sinéad, I’d met her a few times here and there, and maybe chatted briefly with her, but I had always liked her uniqueness, her raging spirit, her disagreeableness, her beautifulness and, of course, her celestial voice.
Sinéad looked up and caught my eye, smiled, and walked over and hugged me. I’m not sure why, but I was terribly moved by her gesture. She was so warm and giving and kind in that moment. I was unaware quite how precious a moment it would turn out to be.
Before I could say anything to her, I was being ushered on to the stage to sing Shane’s song, ‘Summer in Siam’, with him. I think it was the penultimate song of the show, and it would be the first time that evening that Shane himself would take to the stage to perform.
I walked on and sang these most simple and poignant words –
When it's summer in Siam
And the moon is full of rainbows
When it's summer in Siam
Though we go through many changes
When it's summer in Siam
Then all I really know is that I truly am
In the summer in Siam
Shane’s wife, Victoria, then pushed Shane on in a wheelchair and, well, I know I should be talking about the pure unbridled genius of Shane MacGowan and how he was the greatest songwriter of his generation, with the most terrifyingly beautiful of voices — all of which is true — but what struck me at that moment was the extraordinary display of love for this man, so powerful and deep, that poured forth from the audience.
It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced, and in that instant it brought to mind the short poem by Raymond Carver —
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
Shane was not revered just for his manifold talents but also loved for himself alone. A beautiful and damaged man, who embodied a kind of purity and innocence and generosity and spiritual intelligence unlike any other.
Sinéad once said of Shane, ‘He is an angel. An actual angel’. Whether or not this is the case, who’s to say? But Shane was blessed with an uncommon spirit of goodness and a deep sense of what is true, which was strangely amplified in his brokenness, his humanness.
We can say of him most certainly, ‘he was beloved on the earth,’ and Sinéad too — truly beloved and greatly missed, both.”
Love, Nick Cave.
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
He was the real thing. I do think he genuinely was a poet - with a slightly different biography he might have ended up hobnobbing with the likes of Heaney and co.
One thing that's not much acknowledged these past few days is that in the 1980s the old guard of Irish Trad genuinely hated the Pogues - hated them on a pure, visceral level. "Young Miss O'Riordan was compared to that noble animal from which bacon is procured" is the Irish Times line that's always stuck in my mind.
krtek a houby
Kick me again Jesus
You wouldn't know that now.
Nowadays Irish music scene is so tightly nit from the old school to new and other genres besides trad and folk.
Who was the culprit?
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
Can't remember! John Bowman's show yesterday had clips of the Pogues responding to such critics on B. P. Fallon's old show in the 1980s.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Not the Dubliners, presumably?
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
Oh, no definitely not the Dubliners!
(the radio this morning had Luke Kelly doing The Town I Loved So Well - check it out if you can)
krtek a houby
Kick me again Jesus
A lot of love for both bands. So inspiring and timeless.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
When Sinead died I ended up going back to Luke Kelly quite a bit, listening to his/her version of Raglan Road and The Foggy Dew. Amazing that he could combine the same levels of raw emotion with clear as a bell diction.
