The Pogues: A waste of time were it not for Shane MacGowan’s songs

This review first appeared in The Irish Times on August 23rd, 1985

When I first saw The Pogues last year I felt that someone was trying to pull a fast one. Preceded by a wave of enthusiastic critical reports, this collection of five London-Irish boys and one girl took the Stadium stage for a blunt and boisterous blast of traditional Irish music. It was ludicrous. The playing was primitive, the songs were predictable and, though the whole affair was infused with raucous energy, one could only feel that British music was indeed in bad nick if The Pogues were considered the desired shape of things to come.

I forgot about them, thinking that this was one Irish joke which would eventually die a natural death. I was wrong. The Pogues have gone from strength to strength, and last week their leader, singer and songwriter, Shane MacGowan, found his less than beautiful mug on the front cover of NME while the band’s second album, Rum, Sodomy & the Lash, burst into the British charts. Certainly, an increasing number of people seem to be taking the band seriously.

Inside the magazine, however, MacGowan was healthily sceptical as the interviewer attempted to find something deep and meaningful about him, the songs and the band. “It depends on what mood I’m in or how bad my hangover is ... but they [the songs] are not meant to be about hope or despair. They’re just stories,” he told the disbelieving writer.

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I’m pretty sceptical myself. The Pogues are not an Irish band, they are a London-Irish band, and that distinction is very important. The jukeboxes of the emigrant pubs of Kilburn are stuffed with songs of old Ireland, full of sentimentality and false, outdated images. It is from this tradition that The Pogues get their inspiration. And as if to punch home the message they have nurtured the image of being drunkards. It would be a total waste of time were it not for MacGowan’s songs. Although he play-acts as the emigrant casualty he writes about their lives with bitter honesty and hard-hitting accuracy. The Old Main Drag and The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn depict in graphic detail the life and death of a young and old emigrant respectively, while A Pair of Brown Eyes finds the gravel-voiced MacGowan doing a brilliant impression of Tom Waits.

Still, these songs and a few others – good as they certainly are – do not suggest a talent yet ready for the kind of hero worship being lavished on him. Of course, rock, like any other art form, needs something new to keep interest alive. And to most British and continental ears this music will provide a novel and interesting experience, but then they didn’t have to live and grow up with it.

I remember a black man once saying why he disliked the blues and preferred listening to sophisticated modern black music. The blues, he said, reminded him of the time when blacks were little better than slaves; he wanted music that reflected his own urban affluence.

If you grew up with Dermot O’Brien and his accordion then you might understand this feeling. I really don’t miss the hick Irishness of that type of music and the values and the concept of Ireland reflected therein. That is not to say that The Pogues agree with anything O’Brien would believe or vice versa. But by playing with that stage-Irish image – Behan-like lyrics and lifestyle and manic céilí-band music – they invite comparisons.

The British rock press has no such reservations, but even MacGowan seemed a mite embarrassed by the sort of questions the NME writer asked. One gets the feeling that the London critics are trying hard to find their own “hidden” music on their doorstep, their own Tex-Mex. If that is the case, then MacGowan and friends, including their latest recruit, the former Radiators leader, Philip Chevron, will find their newfound supporters a pretty fickle lot. The novelty of the hard-drinking Oirish band will soon disappear and the critical boot will go in.

That said, the writing of Shane MacGowan shows where the band can travel and prosper, and judging by the new album they have also improved spectacularly in their playing. Elvis Costello’s intelligent and sensitive production gives the music plenty of depth and feeling. Against my instincts I found myself happily singing along to the likes of Sally MacLennane or their Luke Kelly-like version of Dirty Old Town. Their epic treatment of Eric Bogle’s bitter Waltzing Matilda is also a revelation, and in general there is a good mixture of crack and real purpose on display. We can check on the real thing when they play in the TV club in Dublin on September 6th and in Belfast the following night.