"Shane... has gone to be with Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother, Therese."
So wrote Shane McGowan's wife, Victoria, this morning, as we all awoke to news that the legendary singer and writer had passed in the early hours of this morning.
I guess we all thought it was maybe a miracle he had passed through sixty five years of life, with his penchant for seeing life through the bottom of a bottle well established over decades (like his Celtic heroes, Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas). Not to mention a heroin addiction through some of that time too. He had always seemed somewhat scruffy, the joke being that The Pogues were a really tight band fronted by a shambles. Turning up on stage, and to interviews, already three sheets to the wind was never unusual.
In 2001, his friend Sinead O'Connor actually reported him to the police for heroin possession - something he was angry about at the time, but later thanked her for getting him off of it. And, he made it through all of that. Then, a nasty fall in 2015 leaving him with a broken pelvis, coupled with a bout of pneumonia, left him wheelchair bound for most of the rest of his life. But the extended stay in hospital forced him into sobriety. Then, towards the end of 2022, he revealed that he had been suffering with encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain. This summer saw him back in hospital, looking very frail.
He made it out a little over a week ago. It enabled him to celebrate his fifth wedding anniversary at home, with Victoria Mary Clarke, an Irish journalist whom he had dated for eleven years before their marriage in Copenhagen in 2018. This morning, she referred to him as, "the love of my life and the most beautiful soul and beautiful angel and the sun and the moon and the start and end of everything."
In the beginning...
Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan was actually born in Kent on Christmas Day 1957. His parents were just visiting relatives at the time, and he was soon back in Ireland, spending his first six years in rural Tipperary. His father, a wannnabe writer, was from Dublin, while his mother, a local girl, was a noted singer.
They moved to England, where a young MacGowan ended up gaining a scholarship to the prestigious Westminster School. That didn't last long though, as he was kicked out by 16 for being caught in possession of drugs. He worked a range of jobs including in record stores and bars, slowly getting sucked into the emerging punk scene of North London.
Irish Punks
1976 saw him (known as Shane O'Hooligan) join young punks, the Nipple Erectors, who eventually shortened their name to the more acceptable Nips. They managed to put out four singles over the next few years.
1982 saw the formation of Pogue Mahone (from an Irish phrase that can be translated as 'kiss my arse') - a band that started to blend traditional Irish folk sounds and songs with the punk ethos and energy they had all grown up with.
Dark Streets Of London - https://youtu.be/h4Jf7qgqJxs?si=QfZU4NEqCIdghoDZ
(Live, 1985)
With 1985s Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, they had thankfully shortened the band name, and MacGowan was coming into his own as a writer of note, such as on The Sick Bed Of Cúchulainn. The album also featured their classic take on Ewan MacColl's folk standard, Dirty Old Town - with the band soon to work with his estranged daughter Kirsty to provide another classic moment.
The Sick Bed Of Cúchulainn - https://youtu.be/qYOAOLlZ5fc?si=b_CcF_eNB_hYk8Bq
(Live in Tokyo, 1988)
When If I Should Fall From Grace With God came out in early 1988, it has been preceded by their most celebrated moment in the sun. Fairytale Of New York, a song written by MacGowan and Jem Finer, had taken almost two years to come to final fruition. Joined by the wonderful Kirsty MacColl, it became their biggest hit, and the most played Christmas song in the UK so far in the twenty first century, but it never quite made it to the number one spot - stalling at number two and being kept off top spot by the Pet Shop Boys cover of Always On My Mind.
Dirty Old Town - https://youtu.be/s11BuatTuXk?si=jTpQY9Fzs8jw9cC6
(Music video)
There was often controversy. Not just from the drunken and rowdy behaviour that followed MacGowan, but from having a boot firmly in the Irish Republican camp. He often drew on the rebel songs of Irish nationalism, and the great Irish myths, like Cúchulainn. He was friends with Gerry Adams and openly admired other key players in Northern Irish republicanism. Some Irish people also felt that he was reinforcing the stereotype of the drunken paddy.
MacGowan's first tenure in the band came to a sad end, while they were on tour in Japan in 1991 - his increasingly erratic behaviour being blamed. Joe Strummer would take over the reins for a few months, before the bands own Spider Stacy assumed the lead singer role, until their split.
The Popes, The Shane Gang and more Pogues
MacGowan kept on working, forming The Popes in 1992, who would go on to receive more critical acclaim, releasing several albums over the next decade or so. Then, in 2010, he briefly formed a band called The Shane Gang, which included several members of Irish rock band In Tua Nua.
A decade after he was kicked out, in 2001, The Pogues and MacGowan were back, and would continue to tour, bringing much joy and Guinness consumption to the world, until the final split came in 2014.
What they said...
Author Frank Cottrell-Boyce summed up the magic of MacGowan's song writing.
"Shane MacGowan could write songs that seemed both embracingly familiar and fresh as morning."
Irish President Michael D. Higgins remarked on MacGowan's status as one of "music's great lyricists." He stated that, "Like so many across the world, it was with great sadness that I learned this morning of the death of Shane MacGowan."
Close friend, and no mean writer himself, Nick Cave talked of "a true friend and the greatest songwriter of his generation."
It also became clear, just how importantly MacGowan was viewed by much of the Irish diaspora in the UK. Dermot O'Leary said that "The Pogues were our band... Shane's words were symbols of an Ireland I knew through sepia-worn pictures and endless summer holidays." Whilst Derry Girls star, Siobhan McSweeney said he was "the voice of London for us Irish."
Now the song is nearly over,
We may never find out what it means.
Still there's a light I hold before me,
You're the measure of my dreams,
The measure of my dreams.
(Rainy Night In Soho)