Shane MacGowan, brilliant but troubled Pogues frontman, dies at 65
He was widely credited with helping create a distinct blend of the raw power of rock and punk with the lilting rhythms of Gaelic folk melodies, inspiring bands such as the Cranberries in Ireland and the Dropkick Murphys in Boston. In his songwriting, Mr. MacGowan often drew from Irish literature, mythology and strains of nationalism from Ireland’s centuries-old conflicts with Britain.
His goal, he said in a 1983 interview, was music that “had roots” but also “more real anger and emotion.” Part of that tableau was tapping into the history of struggle and discrimination in the Irish immigrant experience, particularly among the large Irish community in Britain.
“I was ashamed I didn’t have the guts to join the IRA,” he said in a 2020 documentary, “Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan,” referring to the Irish Republican Army and its battles against British rule in Northern Ireland. “The Pogues was my way of overcoming that.”
Mr. MacGowan first found his inspiration in London’s punk scene in the 1970s as bands such as the Clash and the Sex Pistols brought their rebellious assault. After cycling through punk bands, he formed the Pogues in the early 1980s, becoming its chief songwriter and polestar.
“His defiant, drunken truculence quickly made him an idol to legions of Irish, nearly Irish, and wannabe Irish,” music journalist Stephen Lemons wrote in Salon in 2001.
The Pogues rose from London pub gigs to playing major arenas by the late 1980s. A 1987 holiday-themed lament, “Fairytale of New York,” became one of the band’s most popular songs — with Mr. MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl in a duet, swapping stories of melancholy, broken dreams and drinking. (Christmas was also Mr. MacGowan’s birthday.)
It was Christmas Eve, babe
An old man said to me, won’t see another one
The band’s fifth album, “Hell’s Ditch” in 1990, was its last with Mr. MacGowan. He had been missing gigs and rehearsals as his alcohol abuse deepened. His health was in steep decline from complications of hepatitis, but he reportedly refused physicians’ orders to stop drinking. The band voted to kick out Mr. MacGowan in 1991 after he failed to show for shows during a tour in Japan.
“Joining the Pogues was one of the best things that ever happened to me, and leaving them was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” he told the Daily Telegraph in 1997. “By the end of it, I hated every second of it. They’d moved so far away from what we were doing in the first place. I didn’t like what we were playing any more. I refused to knuckle under and become professional. They were all becoming professionals and growing huge egos.”
Mr. MacGowan later formed the band Shane MacGowan and the Popes, which recorded two studio albums. He rejoined the Pogues for a reunion concert in 2001.
Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan was born near Tunbridge Wells, England, on Dec. 25, 1957. His parents were Irish immigrants working in Britain and returned to Tipperary, Ireland, when Mr. MacGowan was young.
His father played the accordion and concertina, and Mr. MacGowan was performing publicly at 3 after a family audition. “They put me up on the kitchen table to sing and the song went down very well,” he told the Guardian.
Mr. MacGowan married longtime girlfriend Clarke in 2018. In addition to his wife, survivors include his father and a sister.
Reflecting on his career, Mr. MacGowan once described the Pogues as a “bar band. We play music for people to dance to, to fall in love to, to groove to, to have a few drinks to, to cry a little over, and to get a little sentimental over.’”
This is a developing story. A full obituary will be posted.
