Subject: Re: how baywatch changed my life
From: Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Date: Sat Jul 28 2001 - 15:11:16 GMT
>I LOVE the Pogues. For more traditional music you should listen to The
>Chieftans as well.
The Pogues are wonderful, or were, until Shane MacGowan was dismissed
and went on to create the Popes. (The original Pogues are still
around and recording, but I haven't heard any of their post-Shane
music.) They create wonderful music and use the most unlikely
instruments, like penny whistles and very simple traditional Irish
instruments.
However, it was always terribly sad to see Shane wreck himself with
drink. I myself am a teetotaler -- not out of morality or even
issues of long-term health as much as it is because I don't like the
way I feel after I've had a drink. (The one exception is that I
occasionally have a bit of red wine when I'm in Paris; somehow, it
seems unnatural NOT to have a little wine in Paris. I say this in
case I've ever shared a drink with you in that, my second-favorite
city; I don't want you to call me a hypocrite!) But Shane ... I've
seen the band perform many times, and it's heartbreaking to see him
fall around the stage with a bottle of Jameson's in his paw, and
watch him become more and more incoherent as the evening goes on.
He's a phenomenal songwriter, and I admired the politics of the
Pogues when he was with them, and he did some lovely duets with the
singer Kirsty MacColl (who tragically died a few months ago in a
horrible accident), and I had hoped that married life would rein in
his drinking, because there's nothing heroic in doing a Dylan Thomas
number on your liver and your brain, but it doesn't look as if that
is going to happen. (This year, he and his wife did a book together
called A DRINK WITH SHANE MACGOWAN that, if anything, glorified the
hard-drinking, creative-thanks-to-all-the-booze lifestyle that he
seems to live.)
Anyhow, good luck to the Pogues and to poor Shane's liver. JDS may
smoke like he yearns for lung troubles, but at least he seems to have
avoided "the thirsty muse."
--tim
P.S. Trivia question that I regretfully confess has nothing to do
with Salinger: what does the band's original name, Pogue Mahone,
mean, and why was it changed to "The Pogues"?
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