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One Christmas on the train home to see my parents, Shane MacGowan was on the same carriage. The children in the carriage were drawn to him like he was Santa Claus, and they broke out into excited giggling every time they heard his peculiar wheezing laugh. It struck me at the time that children instinctually trusted the authentic good nature behind his ragged and rough persona.
More than any artist I can think of, MacGowan captured the feeling of being carried away by all the dangerously beautiful emotions unlocked by alcohol. In his slurring raspy voice, he sang words of unguarded romantic devotion (“You’re the measure of my dreams”) and described a world animated by the drunken imagination (“the wind was gently laughing”).
The Pogues somehow succeeded in blending Irish traditional and rebel music with punk. Watch old footage, and you can still see that their concerts were attended by an unlikely combination of innocent-looking Irish country people and rowdy urban punks. The songs were full of raucousness, mischievous fun, wild misadventures, comedy, regret, pining and romance. Every year, “Fairytale Of New York” still overshadows all other Christmas songs: “It was Christmas Eve babe, in the drunk tank. An old man said to me, ‘won’t see another one’.” The magic of the song is that it undercuts the saccharine sentimentality of most festive fare, only to become the most sentimental and romantic of all Christmas songs: “Can’t make it all alone, I’ve built my dreams around you.”
Shane could only have been London-Irish. Through him a peasant folk tradition was reimagined with a fresh semi-outsider’s perspective in a modern, urban, countercultural form. He saw the potential in things that could have otherwise been dismissed as the old and the stagnant among the young Irish-Irish. The threads of cultural history that he brought together through the power of imagination spoke to new types of people all over the world.
He performed with Nick Cave, Joe Strummer and The Dubliners. Elvis Costello produced Rum Sodomy And The Lash. His most famous duet was with Kirsty MacColl, and he made famous her father Ewan MacColl’s song about Salford, “Dirty Old Town”. He popularised history that his audience was too young to remember, like the devastating depiction of war in the ballad about the Gallipoli campaign, “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”. In one of its most memorable and emotional scenes, The Wire featured “Body Of An American” and introduced a whole new American generation to The Pogues.
Ireland has no long and continuous native national aristocratic tradition from which to draw inspiration, so an authentic expression has to be very modern — like James Joyce or folk like Luke Kelly, or a combination of the two. Shane was the archetypal poet of low birth, dwelling in an underclass but with an aristocratic sense of valuing the non-commercial things like life, like leisure and self-reflection. He once said: “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.”
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SubscribeThis article is laughably, hilariously wrong, in fact it couldn’t be more wrong if it tried. For Shane McGowan was not London-Irish, he was Kent-Irish, from the posh bit of Tunbridge Wells. His experience of London was the same as most upper-middle class Boys of Kent, a scholarship to Westminster School after a rural prep, and his experience with alcohol was much closer to the English aristocracy than rural Irish. Remember, Ireland in the 60s was an extremely abstemious place, with low levels of drunkenness and children raised with The Pledge. His Irish punk persona was an entirely English adaptation to his family heritage in posh surroundings.
I only saw McGowan once, a gig in Dublin in the 90s, when he started hours late and was in no fit state to perform, reduced by alcohol to disrespecting his audience. I don’t say this to speak ill of him, but rather to say that I think people’s indulgence of his artistic persona was literally fatal for him, and eulogising him in this way is part of the same uncomfortable attitude.
Well at least he died in the traditional manner….the demon drink!
It wasn’t just drink that rotted his teeth.
Just as I suspected! Scrape the surface of any working class hero and underneath you’ll find a middle/upper class specimen eager to enjoy the rebel lifestyle and kudos. John Lennon (he who had an airport named after him by his adoring establishment fan base) was another example as is that superannuated ‘rebel’ Mick Jagger. The problem with the actual salt-of-the-earth working class is that they are not very creative.
Sure, like Jesus of Nazareth and Robert Burns. What a flailing generalization!
Are you trying to make some arch-conservative claim that all wealth and social position–and lack thereof–is warranted and earned, denying even strains of creativity to the masses?
Also, Paul McCartney isn’t working-class or creative enough for ya?
*I wonder if you’re among those who insist that Shakespeare couldn’t have been a commoner.
Jesus of Nazareth was of the house of David so he was royalty. Just because he worked in construction doesn’t make him working class.
I have not heard of Paul McCartney, is he famous? Whoever he is, he is not bigger than Jesus.
Wow. You buy Matthew’s genealogy, stretching back to Abraham? Ah, the ill-considered Jesus comparison–that was Lennon’s fault. I sense a little cheekiness on your part and fair enough.
Pontius Pilate would disagree.
He is to me.
Oops! I seem to have touched a class-sensitive nerve. Sorry, AJ Mac but I think you are the one flailing desperately around as you probably perceived a threat to the comforting ya-can-be-anything-ya-wanna-be egalitarian delusion.
Not sure how salt-of-the-earth working class Paul McCartney’s roots are but to my mind he was certainly the more consistently creative of that Beatles duo. If you are interested there is an excellent documentary available on DVD – Going Underground, Paul McCartney, The Beatles and the UK Counter Culture – which details the considerable musical inventiveness and experimentation he is rarely credited with while John Lennon, in the meantime, was grabbing all the kudos for his Lefty rebel posturing.
By the way, A recent documentary on Sky Arts made a very well argued case that Shakespeare’s plays may have been written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Circumstantial evidence but compelling nonetheless.
Do try to remember: with generalisations there are always plenty of exceptions.
Oops! Keep clutching your patrician pearls–if that’s what you’re wearing these days–and calling out the perceived class- sensitivities of anyone who calls out your specialty: broad generalizations presented as facts. Still, though your frequent reductions seem beneath your evident intellect, you often provide insights, or at least worthwhile provocations.
Thanks for acknowledging the creativity of McCartney, who was straight-up working class (look it up if you have enough time and interest).
My extended family roots are in farming, small-business, and skilled-trades contracting, kind of similar to the dairy farmers in Lennon’s line. I call it upper-lower middle class.
I think Lennon’s snarl and defiance were perfectly matched with McCartney’s tunefulness and tender heart. If forced to choose one I’ll go with Lennon, but I admire both and am glad they met all those Liverpudlian seasons ago.
How many exceptions does it take to make a generalization untrue? I’d venture not many. Sure, they often make decent starting points, or heuristic devices in a pinch or hurry, but they tend not to instruct of illuminate (I allow for exceptions here). Quite the opposite, as a rule. Do try to remember that.
*In my view the anti-WS case is far more compelling to class-system apologists and conspiratorial cranks than the sensible and fairminded. The years don’t even overlap with the earl. But I’ve looked through enough of the hoax literature and video–including claims about Francis Bacon and several others–for one readerly lifetime. Shakespeare observed and to some extent interacted with people of all social levels at the theatre (among the chief conspiracy-fixated objections: How did he understand the court and aristocracy?).
**I’ll try to watch the documentary you mentioned. I quite like Rick Rubin’s 3-part interview with McCartney on Hulu, though Rubin is a total gushing fanboy, and seems stoned to me.
Oh Jeez AJ Mac! Why are you so long-winded? Do I really need to read that brief outline of your family roots? Yet again you seem unable to resist your habitual ‘restaurant critic’ style of reply before moving on to that patronising and lecturing final paragraph. “…try to remember that”? I’ll do my best to forget it!
Have you ever considered being brief, pithy and to the point, or would that not give you an opportunity to parade those debating society moves?
By the way, what exactly is a ‘decent staring point’? Is it something that makes people stop and look?
You are not concise or self-restrained yourself, man. Your long and frequent posts are often preening and self-indulgent, filled with prejudice and preference (thinly) disguised as objective comment. Also, your near-default mode is denunciation and insult and you resist giving an inch even when your whole house of cards gets blown down, doubling down instead, as in this instance. Stop believing in everything you think, please.
If you don’t have the time and interest to hear some brief remarks about my actual background and prefer to make assumptions about my “class-sensitivities”, fine. Likewise, if you want to be patronizing–“Do try to remember”– and then get huffy when the same phrase is justly cast back at you, go ahead and huff away. But it is not a one-way street.
Nice parting shot on my obvious and quite minor, if mildly amusing typo, dude. I guess not much humility or self-awareness can be expected from someone whose screenname announces something close to N. Awakened One.
I challenge you to let me have the last word but anticipate another effusive outpouring, with cheap ingredients, bad aroma, and overwrought flavors. Get it? Restaurant review language. A pretty good crack on your part, though not after you’ve served it again and again as you now have, Mr. Wisdom.
OMG! A four paragraph answer. I should have expected it.
Yup.
Your last sentence sums it up.
You’re right this simply isn’t true:
“Shane was the archetypal poet of low birth, dwelling in an underclass”
Yet another basic factual error in an UnHerd article which undermines the entire point of the article.
“Fairytale of New York” is a work of genius. Even though there are fools trying to censor its words.
I keep trying to like ‘Fairytale of New York’ but it’s not happening for me, I don’t know why. Don’t you hate when that happens?
Try “Rainy night in Soho” or “a pair of brown eyes”. If you still don’t like them after that, they’re probably not for you
I have favorites like ‘Dirty Old Town’ and ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and I want to love ‘Fairytale Of New York’ but it’s not happening for me.
You are not really right about this . Shane I knew well at prep school and he was very very unusual and precocious . He was extremely well read even at the age of ten and he formed a strange romantic attachment to the lifestyle of the Irish working man in the pubs of Kilburn , probably formed through the influence of his dad who was ,despite being a very successful manager and indeed mainstay of the Anglo -Dutch department store chain C and A , a bit of a literary bohemian manque’ . I’m sure Shane imbibed his love of hard drinking and books from his father , if only at that age through the ear rather than down the throat .
He was I suspect quite unintentionally set up for his lifestyle by his father’s romanticisation of writers like Behan . No aristocratic English debauchery needed as an explanation . He was also quite left wing and sent off for copies of chairman Mao’s thoughts from the Chinese embassy ( 1968) Shane was too intelligent to take them seriously and I doubt he even read them , finding the style uncongenial. My copy was certainly a very little read book
Perhaps he read: “culture that a peasant can’t understand just isn’t culture”.
Well he liked Joyce and Lawrence but the former may have been somewhat metropolitan in his interests for chairman Mao .Maybe he’d have got some thoughts on his relating to Mrs Mao from DHL ?
That is fascinating. I must admit that I had no idea of the father’s background, I imagined him a dentist or something conventional to be rebelled against. But surely, the lifestyle of Kilburn man must have been quite imaginary to a ten year old in deepest Kent? I doubt he met many at your prep school. To any London-Irish boy growing up in Camden of the time it would have been a lifestyle to climb out of. Only a wealthy neither-English-nor-Irish boy in Kent could have imagined his way into such an attachment.
Yes probably . I hadn’t realised a lot of his very early life was apparently spent with his Irish relatives in Ireland , up to the age of seven or so . From what I have read over the last few days some of these people were wild and rustic ( or rural at least ) living in a kind of ancestral farm house in Tipperary with republican forebears and stuff . Church pub and bookie and singing and dancing and all that . It may have been melded with the stuff of his reading and his father’s tales because these memories would have been very early .As for his dad the point is he was kind of respectable in profession , perhaps he felt bound to be as the father of a family , but he may have , perhaps unintentionally, started Shane in another direction , perhaps in accord with where he wanted to go as a young man . Bourgeoise respectability would have been anathema to the young Shane .
He (we) wrote a letter of protest to the Tunbrdge Wells Gazette in protest about a fox hunt setting off from the school grounds and it was printed on the front page to the fury of the head master Bairamian who had actually put up with our placards and boos with some good grace .
“Prep school…. …precocious” do not describe the beginnings of one from the underclass.
The truth honours the man more than the lie.
That’s another interesting perspective.
Like who cares? London-Irish or Kent-Irish, he was English-Irish, influenced by rural traditional Ireland and avant guard England spending time in both and reading widely and listening to music from both places.
As for Ireland ever being “abstemious”, you are joking. There were thirty odd pubs in small market towns like e.g Enistymon, Co. Clare, now there are maybe a dozen. The Guards (Police) literally never prosecuted drunk drivers, the only pastime in rural Ireland was drinking. Drinking a lot. Flann O Brien, Brendan Behan, Patrick Kavanagh all died in the 60s. All alcoholics. Folk music circles were especially notorious, musicians were plied with alcohol. Luke Kelly did most of his destructive drinking in the 60s and 70s!
I’m amazed to hear that McGowan was not authentic. How someone raised in the home counties could look like a creature from ‘Deliverance’ is a marvel. Regardless, his voice was well-suited to his band and a pleasure to listen to rather than to see.
There’s none so patriotic as the descendants of the ex-pat.
Biden with his English surname is also Irish don’t you know.
Obviously, we won’t see somebody like Shane McGowan again.
Take his lyrics from ‘If I should fall from grace with God’
‘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’
That will soon be banned as Far Right hate speech by the Irish government.
Well I like him. I don’t care what his roots were, I don’t want his as a guru, just a bloody good singer/songwriter. That’ll do me. RIP Shane
Another one that metaphorically should have been shot?
He’s on record as saying he would have liked to join the IRA but didn’t have ‘the bottle’. How feeble is that I ask you?
You don’t hold a gun licence do you? Asking for a metaphorical friend
Gun license? I apparently have much to learn about England yet. With our much-maligned 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms, I don’t think about needing a permit, although you need one to carry a concealed firearm in some states.. Sorry to get off on a tangent.
Getting back on track, Paul Kingsnorth mentioned Shane MacGowan today and his sadness at his death. RIP.
I think one of the areas where Brits and Americans least understand each other is over guns, but RIP Shane indeed, I doubt there’ll be anyone like him for a long time, a huge talent.
He was just saying what he thought people wanted to hear . Very gentle guy , would not have hurt anyone .
Hooray. Twenty normal people on this thread like Shane too. Good to see that in this creche for angry blokes there are ordinary reasonable people as well.
“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.”
Oh dear-the delusional drunk who justifies his problem by asserting that he exists on a higher plane-no Shane, they spend interminable hours mouthing garbage and slurring their speech as they bore the shit out of each other and struggle to control their bowels. The “glorious drunk”-oh yeah-watch past interviews with him in pubs and its tedious, self centred croap and you get to spend the last years of your shortened life with awful physical and mental impairments before you shuttle off this mortal coil prematurely.
Too true. Some creative types use booze to turn up their inner flame but they burn out early as a result. And most of the brightest lights could have burned longer–perhaps even brighter at times–with better fuel. Quite a few drunken or drugged-out artists have sobered up and shown more overall brilliance and depth than they did as inspired inebriates.
Anyone want to build a list? Eugene O’Neill wrote his best plays during a dry period of more than decade and semi-famous country-folk-rock musician Jason Isbell writes better music (I think) now that he’s off the bottle.
Just the sort of thing spouted by narcissistic drunks in their cups. Lucky for him (and us) he had plenty of talent to back it up. Most narcissistic drunks don’t. They are immature sad sacks who bore everyone with how special they think they are.
Well so long as you don’t include Dylan Thomas, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Behan and innumerable other great poets and artists in that list. Notorious drunks all of them. In fact there is a compelling argument the artistic persona is drawn to a vice or vices they seem to desperately need to release their creative energy.
On the contrary, i’d argue they turn to drink to escape their creative energy, otherwise it’d drive them mad.
Exactly.
My favourite quote about Shane McGowan: “ I knew him before he was Irish”.
I don’t think there’s a real chance that we’ve seen the last of dissolute, drunken dudes, especially among musicians. It may very well be that his level of sloshy abandon and dental disregard could be a rarity going forward. It was pretty outstandingly bad even “way back” about 1990, when McGowan had become a ghastly shadow of his former self by his early thirties. Granted: Wild indulgence was always part of his performer’s crutch–a lifelong act, so to speak.
I think it’s impressive that this man made some enduring music–though most of it doesn’t much appeal to me, despite my Celtic ancestry and liking for Irish music (and “downtrodden” folk tunes) overall–but we don’t need to romanticize his demons. May he indeed rest in peace.
Fortunately we still have The Wolfe Tones.
One of whom, Fintan Warfield, a nephew of the original founder, is a serving Sinn Féin member of the Irish Senate, on the Cultural and Educational Panel (Irish Senate is indirectly elected with 43 members on corporate panels; 3 each by graduates of the University of Dublin and National University of Ireland; and 11 appointed by the Taoiseach)
Fascinating!
But enough about Jimmy Saville ……
Jimmy Saville was not “ragged and rough”. He was the complete opposite of McGowan in every way from how he dressed to how he comported himself. Kids indeed do shy away from the ragged and different. Drunks mostly frighten them. So if indeed they were drawn to Shane some essential goodness must have shone very brightly indeed.
Nicely said.
Ireland has just such a long and continuous native national aristocratic tradition from which to draw inspiration – consider Donleavy and Wilde amongst others.
Very sad news about him dying. But it would be sad news to hear of the death of any chain-smoking pisshead who lived a life of heedless desperation. This guy just happened to do it in public, which is how he got to be famous. Had he been a middle class Irish folkie, with the same voice and talent but with the luck and self-respect to avoid the pitfalls, we wouldn’t have paid him much attention. It was his dissolution and unravelling which was the draw for most of his respectable salaried fans, and that tells us something about the nature of fame today.
Anyway, rest in peace.
This article sadly undermines the passing of a true great, however self destructive he may have been.
Shane Magowan was no “poet of low birth” and a little honesty about that fact would do a shed-load more respect to the man than this ill-researched or just dishonest drivel.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
I’ll wait.
He tried to out-Behan, Brendan Behan but I think BB had other issues (diabetes etc) which contributed to his early demise. I consider him a poet as much as a musician, he had a fine way with words
Regardless his upbringing, there is no doubt Shane at one time felt and lived the despair and longing of the working class. If you haven’t lived it in some way or another you can’t evoke the emotion in others. Eg: Trump will never come across as a person who has felt deprivations in his life because he has never experienced it. I often think think upbringing is why McCartneys songs so ethereal and uplifting and Lennons are thoughtful, emotional and provocative.
I’m gutted. He’s been my pick for Celebrity Death List every year since about 1992 and now I’m going to have to try and think of somebody else.
Taylor Swift perhaps?
The article doesn’t mention his well known bromance with civilian murderer, kneecapper, gangster and latterly politician, Mr Gerry Adams.
What a godawful bunch of miserable preachers many of you lot are. ‘Merry Christmas your arse, pray God its our last.’ It will be, I wont be renewing my subscription, too much sanctimony round here.
Vale!
I love you too, Charlie
It’s the lyric, twit. Or do you only like jolly words?
I’m sure this means something in your head, but you’re having trouble converting this into meaningful speech
Ok bye!
You’ve got me for a few months yet
Ireland’s punk poet… who was born in England.
There’s none so patriotic as the ex-patriot.
https://holmewoodhouse.co.uk/….. Still offers very good music tuition….though not really for Nagle’s underclass
Pissed, self-destructive two-hit wonder finally manages to slide into his personal pit.
What a star.
What an inspiration (zzzzzz).
It’s not Shane’s fault the radio stations only want to play one of his songs, and it’s not Shane’s fault you know nothing about music
Some years ago I saw The Very Best of the Pogues on sale in HMV for £3.99. I can’t think I have had a better return on my money than that anywhere else. 21 brilliant tracks, most of them written by Shane, and even those he didn’t write, such as And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda he brought a new dimension to them.
To paraphrase, two-hit wonder my arse.
Yes, it’s silly to say the songs weren’t good; clearly they were. The working class Irish bit was a bit phoney. And anyway it’s nothing new for the art to be a lot better and more interesting than the person who produced it. Rather it’s pretty much the norm.
One of my favorites along with ‘Dirty Old Town’.
Stick with the sober and upstanding artists who lived long and healthy then. You won’t have many people borrowing your books or listening to your music ! You’ll be the big Z !