Shane McGowan RIP

I also find Soho a bit bland and prefer the songs you mentioned. But someone else in the thread said Bottle of Smoke is their best song. Very subjective as always, but says a lot that's there are probably a dozen songs that could compete for a vote as their best one

I don't mind Bono or Chrsty Moore and a few more but there's going to be fair sprinkling of wannabe "stars " and hanger ons floating around Nenagh today. If I see Glen Hansard or Liam O maoinlai on TV I'll probably throw up!

Ian Dempsey on today fm, played it during the week, with **** changed to haggard

For me he gave us 2nd generation in London and no doubt other English cities a voice as he would have been classed as a plastic paddy like ourselves . Saw the pogues live on numerous occasions, the greatest nights ! Rest in peace Shane you gave us plastic paddies a sense of pride and a sense of purpose

This piece - - yes physically in brutal shape, no question and completely enabled in this sense by his partner who clearly loves him (which says something in itself about him).

Incoherent, demented state - absolutely not.

I think he is a guy who is demonstrates peoples complete inability to look beyond whats in front of them.

Yes he mumbled, yes he took ages to respond to questions - but if you really look at interviews though, he is a highly intelligent and educated man. Intelligent at IQ and EQ levels. If you were to transcribe his answers onto paper this would be very clear. But what people saw was a guy who looked brutal, had long response times and quite frankly looked dopey and out of it. And the other thing they saw was interviewers who could never look beyond this either, lazy questions a booze and hellraising.

And failed to listen to what he actually said.

Sickbed of Cuchulain is one of the greatest lyrics in the history of pop music; did he ever get asked about it once in an interview?

Classic hits have been playing the unedited version.

Here's a quote from Paul Simon who befriended MacGowan in the last 10 years of his life. Nothing in this tallies with incoherency:

................................................

“I already liked what I heard of him,” said Simon. “It was a very striking day in my life when I met him.”

Simon said that MacGowan was often “insightful” during their conversations and spoke about the letters they would send to each other.

Simon read from one letter, which he had since framed, which was penned after Simon gifted MacGowan a set of speakers.

“Thanks for the friendly visit, it was great, and thanks for the lovely speaker, it has made a great difference to our listening pleasure,” wrote MacGowan.

Simon said the pair had been friends for over a decade and he introduced MacGowan to his children the last time he was in Dublin.

Simon said they would speak about the poet Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Prize awardee for literature, but that most of their conversations revolved around music.

One had widely regarded talent the other was born posh and married posher.

Only thing they have in common is a public funeral.

Sorry I was referring to a previous poster but the “reply” function doesn’t seem to work.

Shane was an incredible wordsmith, anyone who he came into contact with in his heyday is nothing but complimentary and that says a lot. It’s just a terrible shame how he ended up, no quality of life since he was a very young man. We shouldn’t normalize the condition he was in.

He was given the best start in life, pity it ended up in drink, drugs, and a life of ill health caused by same. He attended the fee-paying Holmewood House prep school, near Tunbridge Wells. He then won a scholarship to Westminster school in London at the age of 14, a very posh school, where fees are currently over £ 32,000 stg per year. He only lasted a year, as he was found to be in possession of drugs and expelled.

Turned out a bit incoherent, dishevelled, difficult to understand, had it all, great potential, an opportunity wasted? Hard to disagree.

I couldn’t get in today but would have loved to have gone- that’s a lovely tribute from Waits too

🙄

What? He wasn’t Stephen Hawking, he wasn’t “locked in”, he didn’t have some genetic disorder, he wasn’t there anymore because of the amount he drank. Someone was providing him with the drink because he wasn’t physically capable of doing it.

Speak for yourself.

I wasn’t even alive at the time, this was something that was explained in the documentary made about Shane by the BBC in 1997. Ridiculed by Saint Gay.