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Rest in Power, Shane MacGowan.
Tim Evans reflects on the life and death of Shane MacGowan, the perfect poet and frontman of the peerless Pogues, the band that used the power of punk to save folk music from itself.

"So I walked as the day was dawning
Where small birds sang and leaves were falling
Where we once watched the row boats landing
By the broad majestic Shannon"

I saw the Pogues several times, including with Kirsty MacColl in the Brixton Academy, they were the band that saved folk music from itself. Many of the lyrics were pure poetry.Shane MacGowan was a poet, singer, songwriter and one of the great bandleaders of all time. As a writer he was a chronicler of the mean streets and seedy low-life bars, brothels and gambling dens of London and Ireland. His greatest songs in my opinion rank up there with Dylan and Cohen.

"I come old friend from hell tonight
Across the rotting sea
Nor the nails of the cross, nor the blood of Christ
Can bring you help this eve
The dead have come to claim a debt from thee
They stand outside your door
Four score and three"

His rhythms and imagery combine Irish mythology, British imperialism, life on the streets, sea shanties and lyrical evocations of the natural world.

The band's music was a mixture of folk, rock and punk, and the powerful 'Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six' was banned by the BBC. His songs reflected Irish history, the experience of the Irish diaspora, and the struggle for liberation, both personal and political.

"There were six men in Birmingham
In Guildford there's four
That were picked up and tortured
And framed by the law
And the filth got promotion
But they're still doing time
For being Irish in the wrong place
And at the wrong time"

Of course it feels slightly weird that the death of a singer affects you more than the death of a relative. But Shane MacGowan's death was more than the death of one man.

For millions, his death evoked the years of weekend music, excessive dancing and crazy drinking which was the way to go mad but stay sane. Many of us at some point cleaned up (up to a point), but Shane, in the old Pompey saying, 'didn't stop at Fratton'.

He resisted all limitations on the body and spirit, and although I would have liked a few more great songs from him, he burned bright, incandescent, before the forces of gravity claimed him... However Mike Healy makes the important point that Shane MacGowan died of viral encephalitis, a virus which can strike anyone, anywhere, regardless of lifestyle. That kinda undercuts the romantic 'he burned so brightly he burned out' line.

Sure, he was an alcoholic and an addict. But the bars of the world are full of beat-up old guys who've been abusing their bodies for fifty-odd years.

But not all of them will have written great songs that people will still be singing in 200 years' time...

"At the sick bed of Cuchulainn
We'll kneel and say a prayer
And the ghosts are rattling at the door
And the devil's in the chair"

Shane MacGowan's songs are simply outstanding.


They contain imagery from Irish mythology, from the struggle for Irish liberation, from the emigration which was such an aspect of Irish history, from the New York and London metropolis to the rural scenes of Tipperary.

Pic Paul Slattery

But it was the experience of a Pogues performance which was at the heart of the band, especially if the gig was at Christmas, New Year or St Patrick's Day, and especially if you could get down into the mosh pit in front of the stage. The frantic pogoing inevitably meant you'd lose your footing. But immediately ten pairs of hands would reach down to lift you up again. And everybody knew the words of all the songs!

If any music fulfilled a shamanistic function, it was that of the Pogues, and shaman-in-chief was Shane. There is a sense in which all good rock n roll is a ritualistic expression of energy - catharsis, if you like. And being at a gig where Shane was the MC was always a memorable experience. Sure, there'll be the stories of drink and drugs, and he did plenty. But what will really go down in history is his brilliant capture of the squalid glamour of street life blended in with the painful beauty of the natural world.

And of course the most played Christmas Number One in History!

Go dté tú slán, Shane!

Tim Evans

"In Manhattan's desert twilight
In the death of afternoon
We stepped hand in hand on Broadway
Like the first man on the moon
And a blackbird broke the silence
As you whistled it so sweet
And in Brendan Behan's footsteps
I danced up and down the street"

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