By Lisa O’Rourke
Shane MacGowan has left us after a long illness. In his case, long illness means that he spent over half of his adult life, with “a year, at most, to live.” The portraits that stared out of every Irish national newspaper last week were of a much younger man.
The contemporary photos weren’t used, they were too painful. He had become a sad symbol of substance abuse and disease.
While Shane was not known for being sober or ladies’ man material, abandoning himself to drugs and alcohol meant abandoning his talent. And Shane had been a man rich in talent.
I have to confess, that despite loving their music, I did not know much about him. Doing some research to get at the truth about Shane, so much of the information was contradictory. It was even hard to figure out where he was born, which is generally a fundamental in biographies.
I realized that the facts and the truth were not the same thing to the MacGowans. They seemed to exist in a myth of their own making. They were economic exiles from Ireland. And exile was the right word, rather than immigrants.
The move from Ireland seemed to create an emotional chasm in the life of the family. What good times they had were about Ireland, whether celebrating Irish culture especially music or during visits to the old sod.
Returning to England brought on mental illness, troubles and substance abuse for Shane and his mother, in particular. Listening to Shane talk about his youth, every problem he had in his young life was a consequence of time spent in England.
Yet it is hard to imagine the Pogues and Shane growing into the musical force that they became anywhere else. England gave them an edge and something to rebel against. It provided a contrast to what they knew in Tipperary.
The main thing to know is that his soul was Irish, and his body was forced to live in a place that did battle with that soul. And what a soul he had.
The school that kicked him out for smoking cannabis at the ripe old age of twelve, acknowledged that he was a gifted writer. Listening to songs that he wrote for one of his first bands, the Nips, it is easy to hear that he could craft a perfect pop song. He complained that the record company executives did not know the fluff lyrics from “the real stuff.”
While Shane knew the real stuff, it seems that he did not always have a high regard for it. The Australian singer-songwriter Nick Cave claims to have rescued “Rainy Night in Soho” from Shane’s trash can. Nick talked about how hard he himself had tried to sound poetic and literary in his early days of songwriting.
Watching Shane work, he realized that he was wasting his time. Shane did not try for either of those qualities, it just came out that way.
The Pogues
The Pogues were known as a band who started a fight, and a concert broke out. They were born out of the DIY fueled energy of the early 1980s London music scene.
Despite the rough-edged reputation, a lot of their songs were grittily romantic, like “A Pair of Brown Eyes” and “Rainy Night in Soho. ” Their songs covered the Irish experience with a contemporary bent, like the punky rendition of “The Irish Rover” with the Dubliners.
Then there is the perennial Christmas favorite, “Fairytale of New York.” The song lets you know by the second line that you are in for a subversive take on Christmas, with Shane and Kirsty McColl exchanging barbs for the holiday.
The song went to number one in Ireland for Christmas of 1987. Old Irish ballads centered on the fated, whether it was politics or romance or a combination of the two.
The songs of the Pogues share that fatalism, but their songs were about the politics of the street, with all its racisms and economies. While the themes are about universal struggles, those struggles are viewed through an Irish immigrant lens.
Unfortunately for the Pogues and their fans, the band lived up to and beyond their reputations. There were fights and petty jealousies. Drinking and drug use only escalated within the band. Things deteriorated to the point that the music suffered.
During live performances, lyrics were forgotten, and the music was sloppy at best. Eventually, the band split. The band tried to go on and Shane was replaced. It didn’t last.
It has been a tough year for the small group of Irish musical celebrities. Sinead, Shane and the lesser known in the US, Christy Dignam of Aslan. By coincidence, the morning that that Shane died I saw that he would share his anniversary with a man he surely admired, Patrick Kavanaugh.
I could not think of anything more perfect since there is no one who Shane reminds me of more. While Kavanaugh was a poet and not a musician, he was a man who was immersed in the struggles of everyday life, the countryside and Irish culture. One of Kavanagh’s most beloved poems, “Raglan Road” was put to music by Luke Kelly of the Dubliners.
“Raglan Road” is the spiritual grandfather of “Rainy Night in Soho.” Kavanaugh, a man of the people, was fond of Dublin pubs too. Both men were romantics of rural and urban Ireland.
It was lovely to see the tributes that ordinary people paid to Shane, standing in the street, singing his songs. He showed them that love and tragedy happened to everyone and there was a kind of soul in that. He would love to be remembered through his music and as the soulful Irish poet that he was.
Shane outlived his talent by decades. He did know who he was though and what he used to possess. It was sad to see him sometimes, stumbling with words that were his jewels before. But he was a survivor. That was his final lesson. Hang onto this bittersweet ride.
See More of Lisa’s Akron Irish columns HERE
Speech by Mary Lou McDonald at “Preserving Our Past, Rising to Our Future” Moore St conference
Lisa O'Rourke
*Lisa O’Rourke is an educator from Akron. She has a BA in English and a Master’s in Reading/Elementary Education.Lisa is a student of everything Irish, primarily Gaeilge. She runs a Gaeilge study group at the AOH/Mark Heffernan Division.She is married to Dónal and has two sons, Danny and Liam. Lisa enjoys art, reading, music, and travel. She enjoys spending time with her dog, cats and fish. Lisa can be contacted at [email protected].
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