The Pogues

The ultimate debauched romantics' back catalogue is reissued
By Richard Southern
Copyright: Word magazine

Bloody noses aren't normally fond recollections, but for me they're a fundamental part of the romanticism of the Pogues. It wasn't just the music of punk and folk that these London Irish reprobates combined, but their attitudes: punk's nihilistic aggression in the flying fists of the mosh pit, folk's conimunality and romanticism. At the bar we anaesthetised our war-wounds with whiskey, feeling we had lived the tales of heartbreak and horror of A Pair of Brown Eyes, And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda or Fairytale Of New York. Not to mention the drunkenness of Streams Of Whiskey, Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn or Bottle Of Smoke. 

Amongst their best, these tracks are also, not un-coincidentally, from the Pogues' first three albums. Because, from 1989's PeaceAndLove and 1990's -Hell's Ditch the nihilism, heartbreak and drunkenness began to merge in ways that weren't so romantic any more. If you couldn't hear it in Shane MacGowan's half-written lyrics or stupefied vocals, it was all too apparent at the accompanying, shambolic live shows. The Pogues were, musically, a better band than ever, but their heart and soul - MacGowan - had gone a-roving somewhere that didn't look a whole lot of fun. 

So, if those Shane-less albums (Herb and Pogue Mahone) restored some ballast, they couldn't match the band's earlier fervour, the poetic degradation of being drunk and streaked in your own blood and bawling a rebel song. The Pogues reissues are on Warners:  Red Roses For Me; Rum, Sodomy and The Lash,- If I Should Fall From Grace With God Peace and Love, Hell's Ditch Waiting for Herb; PogueMahone.

The Pogues outside the cause of (and the solution to) all their problems.