Shane MacGowan
Lankum, the Mary Wallopers, Lisa O’Neill and John Francis Flynn recall their encounters with the late Pogues singer – and explain how his music encapsulated Irish identity
“There would be all sorts of rumors going around. “He’s with Eamonn Doran with Huey from the Fun Lovin’ Criminals. ‘They’ve been on the whip for three days and they’re still going…'”
Daragh Lynch of Irish folk group Lankum recalls his teenage years speculating about Shane MacGowan’s movements in Dublin. A Rimbaudian villain and colossus of Celtic song, MacGowan packed millennia of rare magic into his 65 years. Now, as one of Irish music’s brightest calendar years draws to a close, Lynch is just one of several folk music heroes saluting an outlier that paved the way forward.
“With Shane, there was just an absolute lack of pretense on every single level,” he says. “He never tried to be anything to anyone. He never tried to fit himself into any category. From the first moment to the last, he was a pure artist who came from an authentic place. This happens much less often than you think.”
Although born in Kent, MacGowan’s dislike of artifice was nurtured by Irish music. As he spent six years of his childhood immersed in the sounds of traditional folk songs at his mother’s home in rural County Tipperary, he felt a deep gratitude for a lineage on which he and the Pogues would masterfully flip the script some 20 years later on the Rum albums , Sodomy & the Lash and If I Should Fall from Grace With God.
Among the young Irish folk singers who view MacGowan’s verses as scripture in songs such as “A Rainy Night in Soho” and “A Pair of Brown Eyes” is Andrew Hendy of the Dundalk balladeers Mary Wallopers. While the teenage Lynch relied mainly on Dublin rumors about his whereabouts, Hendy and his brother, as well as Charles, also a member of the Mary Wallopers, got a little closer to the man behind the story.
Up close and personal… The Mary Wallopers. Photo: Sorcha Frances Ryder
“We used to go to Shane’s house and roll joints for him,” says Andrew. “We would watch Netflix with him. He sat there watching Ancient Aliens and laughed at all these conspiracy theorists. It was all incredibly normal and comfortable hanging out with him in front of the TV. I think he was surrounded by a lot of people who wanted to kiss his ass, which he found patronizing. We told him to fuck off a few times, just like he did to us. That’s what we call friendship here in Ireland.”
It’s unclear whether this was a mutual appreciation of Ancient Aliens, but Lisa O’Neill is another musician who has spent a lot of time with MacGowan. Having named her album “Heard a Long Gone Song” after a line in one of her favorite Pogues songs, “Lullaby of London,” it’s hard to imagine an Irish folk artist in recent years who has embraced the imagery and the precision of MacGowan’s craft has filtered so strongly.
“I think he was one of the best songwriters who ever lived,” says O’Neill. “He was a genius and a true poet. He was bold and courageous and wrote about the side of life he saw. He was emotionally intelligent and socially informed. He had compassion and empathy for the underdog. And he didn’t really write about himself. He wrote about the perspectives of others – people in poverty, homeless people, old people, hunger strikers, prostitutes and rent boys. Shane has seen it all and said it all.”
“Shane was part of a great lineage that included the Dubliners”…John Francis Flynn. Photo: Steve Gullick
In addition to O’Neill, John Francis Flynn – whose masterfully surreal second album Look Over the Wall, See the Sky has won wide acclaim – is another soloist who draws on an almost scientific knowledge of Irish musical tradition. He sees MacGowan’s power as rooted in a certain resistance.
“A lot of the portrayals of Irish music are contrived,” says Flynn. “There is often so much nonsense and misrepresentation, but Shane was always so honest about it. That was the key. He was part of a large lineage that included the Dubliners. They were two artists who pushed their music forward, but knew it was all about the source material and the original spirit. The essence of Ireland really lies in that.”
It’s an energy that was heavy in the air at Shane MacGowan’s 60th birthday celebration at the National Concert Hall in Dublin in 2018. It doubled as a kind of unspoken canonization and was a star-studded musical celebration featuring everyone from Bono and Nick Cave to Sinéad O’Connor and Irish President Michael Higgins. Among the lucky few hand-picked to perform before MacGowan to a sold-out crowd was O’Neill, who performed a magical rendition of “Fairytale of New York” alongside Glen Hansard and members of the Pogues.
“I pinched myself,” O’Neill remembers. “I had a grin that I haven’t seen since. There was just so much love in the room for Shane. Everyone who took on his songs that evening put their heart and soul into it. I remember thinking, “He wrote all of this.” And yet we only cover part of it. I’m so glad he got to hear and feel that that evening.”
“He was one of the best songwriters who ever lived” …Lisa O’Neill. Photo: Claire Leadbitter
The legendary “Knee-Up” is remembered by everyone present, whether invited or not, such as the thunderous John Francis Flynn (“Daragh Lynch smuggled me and a buddy out the back door”). Lankum stunned with a version of the Pogues’ eternal ode to emptiness and consciousness, The Old Main Drag.
“We were late, which messed up the schedule a little,” Lynch remembers. “There was a big dinner and the last two people sitting at this big round table were me and my brother Ian. Across from us sat Shane, who kept his eyes on us the entire time we tried to eat. It was one of those looks that made you feel like it was burning through your soul.”
This was just another aspect of how MacGowan was, as Flynn puts it in perfect Irish, “a gas”. [or funny] Character”. At the heart of this temperament was a warmth that Lisa O’Neill has experienced first hand in recent years.
I have always felt very honored to be in his company. Everyone who met him knew he was a truly lovely man
“The last time I saw him was last Christmas,” she says. “We sang to raise money for the Simon Community for the Homeless, which Shane did every year. I’ve done that the last few years, so I always saw him at Christmas. This was usually followed by a small session and a few songs. We got along well and it was always a great honor for me to be in his company. Anyone who met him knew he was a truly lovely man.”
As various end-of-year lists will likely soon show, Irish folk music has flourished since that fabled night at Dublin’s National Concert Hall five years ago. Firmly at the helm is Flynn, whose latest album includes Kitty, a Pogues album closer and folk standard that MacGowan saved from obscurity back in Tipperary.
“I recently spoke to Spider Stacy at a gig in Lankum,” says Flynn. “He told me that Shane’s sister Siobhan had told him the story of the song. It has traveled so far in time; It has reached and touched so many lives. When you sing traditional songs, you are connected to people from the past. Everyone just sang it, but no one knows who wrote it, so when you sing it you connect with all these people. Shane did that too.”
Like the average Irish funeral service, MacGowan’s best work combined sadness and exuberance, and in most cases it was consistent with a social conscience. A seer who made no pretenses, he knew that the daily life of the common man – not least for those living in the diaspora – was anything but ordinary. Listening to Pogues’ songs like “Thousands are Sailing” (“Where e’er we go, we celebrate / The land that makes us refugees”), every other verse feels like a friend to the marginalized.
In a way he was able to carry on the Irish folk tradition because he spent a long time outside Ireland
It’s a crucial part of MacGowan’s legacy that President Higgins shone a bright light on Thursday. In a social media post, he mused that the genius of MacGowan’s music is that it captures “the measure of our dreams” and speaks to the challenges of the émigré experience. It was a consummate tribute that made it clear that for MacGowan, national pride was never a sign of bigotry or exclusion.
Hendy of the Mary Wallopers sees an essential part of the magic in this deeply lyrical celebration of the human experience, be it in Ireland or far beyond. “In a way he was able to carry on the Irish folk tradition because he spent a long time outside of Ireland,” says Hendy, whose stirring second album Irish Rock N Roll was released in October. “Growing up he had heard all this incredible traditional music. Next he hit the pub scene in London, writing songs like “Streams of Whiskey” where he dreams of shaking [writer and Republican activist] Brendan Behan’s hand. Shane had a special ability to look at everything from both the inside and the outside.”
“He was a pure artist who came from an authentic place” … Lankum, with Darragh Lynch second from left. Photo: Patrick Bolger/The Guardian Shane MacGowan obituary
Lynch advocates the theory of distance as muse. When Lynch’s brother Ian moved to London to live in squats, the parallels became clear. “As an Irishman in London, he became homesick and suddenly started listening to more artists like the Pogues, Christy Moore and the Dubliners,” says Lynch. “I think that’s the same thing Shane experienced when he was writing his lyrics.”
As Christmas Day – which would have been MacGowan’s 66th birthday – approaches, the small matter is that “Fairytale of New York” is sure to become ubiquitous. It may have more than lived up to it in 2018, but O’Neill sees it as a special opportunity to appreciate the grandeur of the bigger picture.
“It’s one of the best songs ever written, but Shane has written better songs,” she says. “It’s established and amazing, but there are also pieces like Rainy Night in Soho, Lullaby of London and Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six. I just hope that in the coming days the media gets some of the information that Shane had to use this time to consider his life’s work. It is truly special and will serve as an education for future songwriters and poets.”
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