Shane MacGowan, the brilliant but chaotic former songwriter and Pogues frontman who reignited interest in Irish music in the 1980s by harnessing it with the driving force of punk rock, has died. He was 65.
Mr MacGowan’s wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, announced his death on Instagram. She did not provide any further details. A joint statement from the family shared on one of the band’s social media accounts said he died early Thursday. “Prayers and last rites were read, giving comfort to his family,” the statement said.
Mr MacGowan emerged from the London punk scene of the late 1970s and spent nine tumultuous years with the first incarnation of the Pogues. Hailing from north London pubs, the band performed at stadiums in the late 1980s before Mr MacGowan’s addictions and mental and physical decline forced the band to sack him. He later formed Shane MacGowan & the Popes, with whom he recorded and toured in the 1990s.
Over the course of his career, Mr. MacGowan earned a reputation as a titanically destructive personality and a masterful songwriter whose lyrics vividly depicted the dark side of Irish émigré life. He is best known for the opening lines of his biggest hit, a Christmas classic called “Fairytale of New York,” which has morphed into an unlikely Christmas classic about the lament of alcoholics.
It was Christmas Eve, baby
In the drunk tank
An old man told me I won’t see another one
“I was good at writing,” Mr. MacGowan told Richard Balls, who wrote his authorized biography “A Furious Devotion,” published in 2021. “I can write, I can spell, I can make it flow and when I mixed it with music, it was perfect.”
In addition to his wife, Mr MacGowan is survived by his sister Siobhan and his father Maurice.
A full obituary will be published shortly.
Derrick Bryson Taylor contributed reporting.