One can have a talent for music and poetry, but a life marked by addictions and a propensity for violence. One of Shane MacGowan’s earliest memories is of him drinking pints of Guinness as early as the age of five. In his youth he also took (and sold) speed. He first appeared in a newspaper because his girlfriend Jane Crockford bit his earlobe at a Clash concert and he continued to dance bloodily: “Cannibalism at the Clash gig” was the sensational headline in the press. That was before MacGowan led The Pogues, the band that updated traditional Irish music in the light of punk in the early ’80s. And this wild and almost always drunk guy brought out an exquisite sensibility in his songs. From his broken voice, from a mouth toothless from fighting and drugs, verses of intoxicating melancholy sprouted.
The documentary Crock of Gold: Drinking with Shane MacGowan (on Prime Video) is a Johnny Depp production directed by Julien Temple about a key figure in Irish diaspora culture over the last half century. He was the son of immigrants to England and spent time in Tipperary, his mother’s country. But it was only in London that the phenomenon that eventually became the Pogues could emerge.
As fame rose, MacGowan reportedly lost control of his career and lapsed into vice: he was forced to stray from his roots and sing songs that were as commercial as they were far from his ideology. An example is “Fiesta” with verses in Macaronian Spanish about the Almería fair. In the end they kicked him out and he formed a new band that served only him and had a very similar name: The Popes. The breakup was traumatic (and unprofitable) for both of them; In 2001, the singer returned with The Pogues to tour again, although there were no further studio albums. A severe hip fracture in 2015 forced him into a wheelchair where he could not stand upright. Three years later, when he turned 60, he was honored by peers such as Bono, Sinéad O’Connor and Nick Cave (and the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins). at a concert in Dublin.
The film from 2020 portrays him in all facets (archive images, interviews, dramatized scenes, cartoons) without skimping on the rough. We see that he is still a drunk and a quarrelsome. And while he claims to be free of other addictions, it would be better if no one offered him a hit of heroin because he was capable of it. His only regret in life is that he didn’t have the courage to join the IRA. Among those chatting with him in a pub is Gerry Adams, the historic leader of Sinn Féin, formerly the terrorist group’s political arm, now the leading political force in Northern Ireland.
A seedy MacGowan regrets nothing, punk to the end. As he says of Johnny Depp, “You’re so handsome you’re gross.” He prides himself on ugliness even though there’s so much beauty in the music he’s created.
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