“You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap, lousy f****t.”
It’s Shane MacGowan’s best-known line, the subject of much debate and discussion, but the head Pogue wrote so many great lines that it seems unfair his lyrical legacy should be boiled down to a redundant epithet.
Here are 10 of the best from the boozy bard.
1. Dark Streets of London
Now the winter comes down, I can’t stand the chill
That comes to the streets around Christmas time
And I’m buggered to damnation and I haven’t got a penny
To wander the dark streets of London
Fairytale wasn’t MacGowan’s only song about being down and out at Christmas time. Before he wrote that seasonal classic, set in New York, he wrote many an ode to the dissolute life in London, and this song captures the bleakness of a winter in that cold, unforgiving city.
2. Transmetropolitan
In the rosy parks of England, we’ll sit and have a drink
Of VP wine and cider ‘til we can hardly think
And we’ll go where the spirits take us, to heaven or to hell
And kick up bloody murder in the town we love so well
The opening track of the Pogues’ debut album was a raucous ode to going on the lash in London, and as a statement of intent, this first line was unequivocal. The “rosy parks of England” conjures up Pimm’s on the croquet lawn, but it’s clear that these bowsies are out to stomp all over the picnic basket.
3. Streams of Whiskey
I have cursed, bled and sworn, jumped bail and landed up in jail
Life has often tried to stretch me, but the rope always went slack
And now that I’ve a pile, I’ll go down to the Chelsea
I’ll walk in on my feet, but I’ll leave there on my back
In the narrator’s fevered dream, he is visited by a vision of Brendan Behan, who shares his philosophy of life – basically, when the going gets tough, the tough go to the pub, knock back 15 pints and have to be carried out.
4. A Rainy Night in Soho
Now this song is nearly over
We may never find out what it means
Still there’s a light I hold before me
And you’re the measure of my dreams, the measure of my dreams
With many of MacGowan’s songs – Sally MacLennane for instance – it’s hard to tell whether he’s singing about a beguiling woman or a favourite drinking haunt. Rainy Night in Soho is equally ambiguous, and the “measure” reference is open to interpretation, but the killer closing lines of the song are no less poignant for it.
5. A Pair of Brown Eyes
Some cursed, some prayed, some prayed, then cursed
Then prayed, then bled some more
And the only thing that I could see
Was a pair of brown eyes that was looking at me
Many of MacGowan’s songs feature a loquacious character in the next barstool/cell/sickbed whose got a story to tell, and this one features a soldier who endured the horrors of war by focusing on the brown eyes of his loved one, and has been searching vainly for the elusive ochre peepers ever since.
6. If I Should Fall from Grace with God
Bury me at sea
Where no murdered ghost can haunt me
If I rock upon the waves
No corpse shall lie upon me
The title track from The Pogues’ third album is a deathbed entreaty by a man who has accepted he’s probably not going to float through the pearly gates while a host of angels sing. So he needs to go where the ghosts of those he has killed can’t catch up with him, and the high seas might just provide cover.
7. Lullaby of London
May the ghosts that howled ‘round the house at night
Never keep you from your sleep
May they all sleep tight down in hell tonight
Or wherever they may be
When MacGowan sings you a lullaby, chances are it’ll keep you awake at night with the horrors, and Lullaby of London is filled with visions of ghost, graves and all sorts of howling winds. Still, at least there’s no danger of the cradle plunging to the ground from the treetop.
8. The Broad Majestic Shannon
I sat for a while at the cross at Finnoe
Where young lovers would meet when the flowers were in bloom
Heard the men coming from the fair at Shinrone
Their hearts in Tipperary wherever they roam
A homecoming song of sorts, as MacGowan revisits the places near the shores of Lough Derg where he spent his early childhood. The song conveys that huge sense of longing for home, and also the equally huge sense that no matter how much you wish for it, you can never go back to the past.
9. The Body of an American
Fare the well, gone away, there’s nothing left to say
With a sláinte Joe and Erin go my love’s in Amerikay
The calling of the rosary, Spanish wine from far away
I’m a free born man of the USA
The curse of the emigrant looms large over the lyrics of this song, in which the body of boxer Big Jim Dwyer is returned home to the ould sod to be buried. Needless to say, the wake for this expat descends into drinking, reminiscing and, ultimately, regret.
10. White City
Oh, the torn-up ticket stubs from a hundred thousand mugs
Now washed away like dead dreams in the rain
In this lament for how his beloved London has gone to the dogs, MacGowan recalls the old greyhound track at White City, where “the paddies and the frogs came to gamble on the dogs” and invariably lost their shirts.
