Tom Dunne: We'll raise a parting glass to Shane MacGowan's drink-soaked genius
Shane MacGowan on the grounds of Howth Castle in 2004. Picture: Fran Veale
Shane MacGowan will be laid to rest on Friday. Glasses will be raised, pints ordered, whiskeys consumed in sombre appreciation of the great man’s gifts and the void he leaves in all our hearts. At some point people will sing ‘The Parting Glass’.
There will be in short, many, many glasses and I can’t help but suspect it is as the great man would have liked it. Shane, to use the vernacular, liked a drink. Yes, it is a euphemism, but it would be a cold-hearted cur would deny its romance for him. He thrived on it, at least for a while.
In his myth, and Shane will be forever part myth, part legend. The was sipping Guinness aged five as he sang rebel songs on a tabletop at family sessions in Tipperary. The die was cast early. This was to be a story in which drink was to be taken.
It seemed inevitable that The Pogues would be spawned in late night drinks sessions. Early name suggestions have a whiff of strong spirits about them: The Millwall Chainsaws, The New Republicans, before finally Pogue Mó Thóin.
That is not the kind of name that gets arrived at via a focus group having “blue sky” meetings on a Spa and Wellness weekend. It’s a “drink taken” name, which oddly stays funny even after you sober up.
It was no surprise either that The Pogues found their initial following in London’s pubs, or that the first bit of live TV that connected with an audience was Spider Stacey beating himself over the head with a drinks tray on The Word.
The debut album, Red Roses for Me, continued to set out their stall. The Spirit of Brendan Behan was abroad in its world. The “drinker with writing problems” as he called himself, is alluded to in ‘Streams of Whiskey’ and Behan’s song, ‘The Auld Triangle’ is lovingly presented.
Drinks and drinking were front and centre in all things Pogue. Critics loved it and sang hymns in praise of “the power of positive drinking” and its blend of “revved up folk punk” and “gutter hymns.” “Somewhere,” one would later muse, “amongst the glasses and the ashtrays lie a few home truths.” In vino veritas, or in wine, there is truth, as the ancients would have said.
The effect of all this “Positive Drinking” on the Irish diaspora was a sight to behold. Irish emigration and our drink culture had descended to parody by that point. Irish people were, apparently, abroad, lonely, meeting up in Irish centres and drowning their sorrows.
We were, to quote the song, drinking buttermilk all the week in the vain hope of whiskey on a Sunday. What a sad lot we were.
Until we weren’t. Until suddenly we were jumping around to the music of band determined to make drinking and fighting and sex sound glamourous again. It was a band, as one review said, “giving two fingers to anything considered fashionable in 1984”.
It was youth, it was wild abandon, it was fun, dangerous and intoxicating. It was a night out you’d never forget, with friends that meant the world to you and a band that nailed it every time. And who knows, maybe you’d wake with a “ginger lady” by your side.
And when the comedown hit you, when the demons arrived, when the darkness beckoned, Shane had the cure for that too. The pathos, the sadness of ‘Rainy Night in Soho’, or a Christmas Eve, in the drunk tank, the human condition, writ large.
Elvis Costello fought to produce their second album, Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash. He said he wanted to “capture them in their dilapidated glory before some professional producer f**ked them up”. He succeeded wonderfully.
Part of its excitement, in songs like ‘Sally McLennane’, ‘The Wild Cats of Kilkenny’ or ‘The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn’ is that sense that it all might crash at any moment. It feels like the only thing keeping it on track is its own reckless momentum.
The moment had already slightly passed by the next album, If I Should Fall from Grace with God. It’s more polished, more democratic, still brilliant, but a little more controlled, more sober.
Shane produced heady, pre-22 units a week music, that was as soaked in alcohol as it was in genius writing. It was a dangerous combination, but, God, when he got it right.
So, raise a glass to Shane, it seems the least we can do.
