Shane MacGowan has passed on.


He was 65 years old.

I probably wouldn't know who he was, but I was listening to public radio (91.3 WYEP) a long time ago and they played a duet of him (when he was front man for The Pogues)  with Sinéad O’Connor doing "Haunted" and the contrast between the two voices appealed to me to such an extent that I went to a CD store and bought the disc.  I have a CD of him with The Popes as well; I believe I bought it for a Bob Dylan cover they did.

I always had the impression that he was living pretty hard.

immatthewj

With an album entitled “Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash” one knew the Pogues weren’t going to deliver a load of ballad/love songs!

Elvis Costello at the producer’s helm didn’t hurt……til the next day.

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Pogues created some extremely meaningful music for me, knowing of Shane's issues with substance abuse made it even more meaningful. Shane grew up in a substance abuse culture, the fact he made something of himself is a thing to respect.

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