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Shane MacGowan is still alive!

  • 10-10-2010 11:54AM
    #1
    Dionysus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,420 ✭✭✭


    It's time to celebrate somebody in life. This is definitely worth celebrating, although YouTube has a couple of obituaries to him already: here and here.

    Just watching him smoking and drunk singing Spancil Hill with Christy Moore on the Late Late Show years ago. What a talent, what a distinctive voice and talent. He's still a huge character, no matter what anybody thinks of what he's done with it.

    Here's Shane sitting in a pub - "I've got an addictive personality; I'm not an alcoholic" - before starting to sing (and being joined by his mother). And singing with Sinéad. And with Nick Cave singing What a Wonderful World. Not forgetting two of his greatest collaborations, with The Dubliners singing The Irish Rover, and with the Pogues and Kirsty McColl in New York in 1988 singing what is still, in my view, the greatest Christmas song of all time: Fairytale of New York.

    He'll be 53 years old this December. Long may he continue. What are your memories of the man?


Comments

  • #2
    ColeTrain
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,681 ✭✭✭ColeTrain


    Dental plan Shane needs braces. :D

    Great singer, enjoy a lot of his work. I thought he was a lot older than 53 mind you.


  • #3
    Mr Benevolent
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,433 ✭✭✭✭Mr Benevolent


    An embarrassment to the nation imo, one of our most famous exports (ok, he's English) is an infinitely drunk ugly fucker with the voice of Oscar the Grouch on heroin. In Dublin.


  • #4
    brummytom
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,572 ✭✭✭✭brummytom


    I found some great videos of a Pogues concert the other day that I'd never seen before, actually.


    He might have some problems, but he's still a poet. My favourite song of his has to be Rainy Night in Soho; this is the version from that concert:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1m3q9mQN-s


    I love Damien Dempsey's version too... fantastic song.



    And, just for the sake of it; the Pogues with the Specials:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7QL_PDC5XM


  • #5
    orourkeda
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,916 ✭✭✭✭orourkeda


    Why are we celebrating a drunk who pissed whatever talent he had down the toilet. If he wasnt a well known singer he'd be stepped over by the majority of people in this thread.


  • #6
    stovelid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,252 ✭✭✭✭stovelid


    Because we live in a nation that moralizes about teenage drinking but we like alcoholic parodies (and a lot of the sentimental Orish stuff they write) like Shame McGowan to live that life for our own amusement.


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  • #7
    ColeTrain
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,681 ✭✭✭ColeTrain


    Confab wrote: »
    An embarrassment to the nation imo, one of our most famous exports (ok, he's English) is an infinitely drunk ugly fucker with the voice of Oscar the Grouch on heroin. In Dublin.

    Are you saying that there are no other well known artists from around the world with drink/drug problems? Just because he has an Irish backround with an addiction you'd label him an embarrassment ? Get a grip ffs


  • #8
    bonerm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,594 ✭✭✭bonerm


    Confab wrote: »
    An embarrassment to the nation imo, one of our most famous exports is an infinitely drunk ugly fucker with the voice of Oscar the Grouch on heroin.

    But enough about Brian Cowen.


  • #9
    Profiler
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,327 ✭✭✭Profiler


    I think he is fantastic.

    If you look at the body of work he has produced as a musician then he is in my view one of the great Irish people of the last 20 years.

    If you have time check out the lyrics to "Rainy Night in Soho" and "A pair of Brown Eyes"

    I think that in a time when so much of what is called music is so manufactured, so unnatural, so contrived. People like Shane are a becon for what music should be all about.

    When "talent shows" just churn out facsimile copies of last months, last years, last decades "Hot New Thing" someone like Shane is exactly what music needs.

    So raw, at times so ugly, at times something that highlights a dark side of us all, but underneath it a fantastic talent and somebody who deserves to be celebrated.


  • #10
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 24,867 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    orourkeda wrote: »
    Why are we celebrating a drunk who pissed whatever talent he had down the toilet. If he wasnt a well known singer he'd be stepped over by the majority of people in this thread.

    Saying he's 'p*ssed whatever talent he had down the toilet' is a bit harsh.
    He's written some excellent songs both 'Rum, Sodomy and the Lash' and 'If I Should Fall from Grace with God' have some brilliant McGowan songs on them*.

    I understand there's an element of what-he-could-have-achieved and all that but I reckon a lot of those tunes wouldn't have come out unless he made the life choices that led him there.

    That said I'd probably step over him even though he's a well known singer, he might bite me or something.

    *as does 'Hell's Ditch' and 'Red Roses for Me'.


  • #11
    Dionysus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,420 ✭✭✭Dionysus


    brummytom wrote: »
    He might have some problems, but he's still a poet. My favourite song of his has to be Rainy Night in Soho; this is the version from that concert:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1m3q9mQN-s

    I forgot entirely about Rainy Night in Soho - what an amazing song/poem. A quick Google and sure enough MacGowan wrote that as well.


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  • #12
    bonerm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,594 ✭✭✭bonerm


    Still think that song is about booze (not a woman). That's why it sounds like he means it.


  • #13
    Dionysus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,420 ✭✭✭Dionysus


    bonerm wrote: »
    Still think that song is about booze (not a woman). That's why it sounds like he means it.

    :)


  • #14
    _feedback_
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,274 ✭✭✭_feedback_


    This is a long video, but keep an eye on the guy in the addidas top. It's funny stuff! It also has a sample of his "laugh".

    EDIT: Jesus that is one musical mess!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Scb4_W2qeQ


  • #15
    orourkeda
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,916 ✭✭✭✭orourkeda


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Saying he's 'p*ssed whatever talent he had down the toilet' is a bit harsh.
    He's written some excellent songs both 'Rum, Sodomy and the Lash' and 'If I Should Fall from Grace with God' have some brilliant McGowan songs on them*.

    I understand there's an element of what-he-could-have-achieved and all that but I reckon a lot of those tunes wouldn't have come out unless he made the life choices that led him there.

    That said I'd probably step over him even though he's a well known singer, he might bite me or something.

    *as does 'Hell's Ditch' and 'Red Roses for Me'.

    Thats true. Theres always the element of what he would have achieved had he not drinking so heavily.


  • #16
    nxbyveromdwjpg
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,402 ✭✭✭nxbyveromdwjpg


    Legend, and best song writer ever associated with this country


  • #17
    bonerm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,594 ✭✭✭bonerm


    On top of anything else I like how he has a laugh similar to Mutley from Wacky Races.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCfyOXJf3ZM


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr09CE7OWkE


  • #18
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 24,867 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    orourkeda wrote: »
    Thats true. Theres always the element of what he would have achieved had he not drinking so heavily.

    Not to mention the drugs...


  • #19
    Biggins
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 34,567 ✭✭✭✭Biggins


    Dionysus wrote: »
    Shane MacGowan is still alive!
    Great news, so is my next door neighbour.
    Next...


  • #20
    BackScrub
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 353 ✭✭BackScrub


    Confab wrote: »
    An embarrassment to the nation imo, one of our most famous exports (ok, he's English) is an infinitely drunk ugly fucker with the voice of Oscar the Grouch on heroin. In Dublin.
    orourkeda wrote: »
    Why are we celebrating a drunk who pissed whatever talent he had down the toilet. If he wasnt a well known singer he'd be stepped over by the majority of people in this thread.

    Get off the internet.


  • #21
    liah
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,750 ✭✭✭liah


    I've never met him myself but some friends of mine played with him often and knew him, there's a video kicking around on youtube of Sleepy (think his actual name's Martin, from the Aftermath) in a chav uniform out of his head on god knows what accosting Shane. He seems like great craic altogether.


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  • #22
    _feedback_
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,274 ✭✭✭_feedback_


    liah wrote: »
    I've never met him myself but some friends of mine played with him often and knew him, there's a video kicking around on youtube of Sleepy (think his actual name's Martin, from the Aftermath) in a chav uniform out of his head on god knows what accosting Shane. He seems like great craic altogether.

    *ahem* :cool:

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=68429919&postcount=14


  • #23
    liah
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,750 ✭✭✭liah


    elviscostello wrote: »
    *ahem* :cool:

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=68429919&postcount=14

    Haha, that's the one! And Mick's drumming, too.

    Poor Sleepy. He really is a lovely fellow, honest :pac:


  • #24
    _feedback_
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,274 ✭✭✭_feedback_


    Aye, know the lads myself too. I got a great laugh out of that video today, hadn't seen it since it first surfaced!


  • #25
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 7,713 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    I was drinking and smoking joints with him till six in the morning there last christmas..he is in awful shape though..he just has this wierd cackle of a laugh..he was getting massive rounds in for a finish though..


  • #26
    thebaz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,227 ✭✭✭✭thebaz


    an Irish institution , still going strong , from a few weeks ago in dublin

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebaz/4895498007/

    and more importantly, sounded better than ever IMO


  • #27
    cruiser178
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,654 ✭✭✭cruiser178


    iv'e been a fan of shane for such a long time now its like his music has been with me forever,poetic genius,i remember him playing in camden town(london)1987,mind blowing.
    A few posters have said here,he wasted his life through drink,i cant disagree with that but how boring/meaningless would his songs be if he sang them sober?
    There is very few ppl can equal shanes song writing/singing and im talking about the greats,freddie mercury and...well thats about it.
    As a poster already said,read his lyrics,what an insperation.


  • #28
    ascanbe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,089 ✭✭✭ascanbe


    Pretty much as close as you'd find to bona-fide genuis in popular music, in his prime.
    Here's a couple of my favourites that haven't been posted yet; could post quite a few more.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98EWBKCHsd4


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS0cCkSTChg


  • #29
    Pdfile
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,114 ✭✭✭Pdfile


    Dionysus wrote: »
    It's time to celebrate somebody in life. This is definitely worth celebrating, although YouTube has a couple of obituaries to him already: here and here.

    Just watching him smoking and drunk singing Spancil Hill with Christy Moore on the Late Late Show years ago. What a talent, what a distinctive voice and talent. He's still a huge character, no matter what anybody thinks of what he's done with it.

    Here's Shane sitting in a pub - "I've got an addictive personality; I'm not an alcoholic" - before starting to sing (and being joined by his mother). And singing with Sinéad. And with Nick Cave singing What a Wonderful World. Not forgetting two of his greatest collaborations, with The Dubliners singing The Irish Rover, and with the Pogues and Kirsty McColl in New York in 1988 singing what is still, in my view, the greatest Christmas song of all time: Fairytale of New York.

    He'll be 53 years old this December. Long may he continue. What are your memories of the man?


    singing dirty oul town in the gasworks pub with mates then guess who walks in... :pac:


  • #30
    bronte
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,331 ✭✭✭✭bronte


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuL4xHSYBHo



    :D
    I'm still trying to perfect my impression of his giggle!


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