{"id":805341,"date":"2020-03-17T09:22:46","date_gmt":"2020-03-17T15:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=968398"},"modified":"2020-03-17T09:22:46","modified_gmt":"2020-03-17T15:22:46","slug":"the-dark-beauty-spirit-and-wild-energy-of-shane-macgowan-and-the-pogues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/the-dark-beauty-spirit-and-wild-energy-of-shane-macgowan-and-the-pogues\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Dark Beauty, Spirit, and Wild Energy\u2019 of Shane MacGowan and the Pogues"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote the song \u201cShane\u201d for my latest album Sunset Kids<\/em><\/a> while we were taking a break from recording, and producers Lucinda Williams<\/a> and Tom Overby were back out on the road. It came to me after a trip I\u2019d taken to Dublin to sing at Shane MacGowan\u2019s 60th birthday. Nobody really though that this mythical punk rock poet who was born on Christmas day would ever live this long\u2026but he did.<\/p>\n

I saw the Pogues<\/a> for the first time at their New York City debut, at a club in Chelsea called Danceteria. It was pretty intense, and people were going wild to this mix of Celtic folk and punk rock. I\u2019d never seen anything like it before, and probably was not ready for it. It wasn\u2019t until many years later when I went to see the Pogues play again with Joe Strummer fronting the band, because Shane was unable to make the tour. I was a big Clash fan, and there was the almighty Strummer getting heckled by this big crowd at the Beacon Theater with chants of \u201cShane, Shane, Shane.\u201d I thought that anybody who could have their name shouted out over Saint Joe must be pretty special, so I began the investigation. I bought all the Pogues records and took them out with me on tour. I finally understood the dark beauty, spirit, and wild energy, that this band truly had.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I finally got to see Shane again with his new band the Popes at Irving Plaza where he did a mix of new material and Pogues favorites. The crowd was hanging on every word, singing along, and jumping up and down so hard I thought the floors would cave in. Going to see him was like going to see Johnny Thunders, Keith Richards, or Lemmy, one of these guys that you didn\u2019t know if they were going to make it to the gig or die up there on the stage\u2026kind of like that Daffy Duck character in the Bugs Bunny cartoon who is about to blow himself and says, \u201cHey boys and girls, remember I can only do this trick once.\u201d Well, Shane did that trick many times. It was amazing to watch the effect he had on so many people, holding himself up on the microphone stand with a cigarette or a drink in the other hand. As fucked up as he\u2019d get, he never missed a word or a beat, telling us stories of a sad and beautiful world. He quickly became one of my heroes, so much so that I name-checked him in my song \u201cMona Lisa\u201d on my second album, The Heat<\/em>.<\/p>\n