If I Should Fall From Grace With God - The Shane McGowan Story

[Scotian]

I caught this on the Documentary Channel the other night. I was pretty shocked at how bad Shane looks now (though he was never very pretty). Overweight, rotten teeth, talking in a drunken slur 99% of the time ("I've always been a babe magnet"). The woman that introduced the documentary went on & on about how shocking the documentary was & how it was such a waste of talent, etc. I hope she stays away from the East Coast cause I see guys that look as bad as him if not worse every day.

The documentary has alot of footage of the Pogues so I'd recommend it to anyone that likes them.

[teaser5]

I heard a radio interview not too long ago with Steve Earle and a caller asked about Shane. Earle sounded sad when discussing McGowan. By this time he was clean and sober and said that while he still liked Shane and respected his music, he just couldn't hang with him any more. It was too hard to watch what he was doing to himself and too tempting I guess.
Sounded like they had done some damage together back in the day...

I love that song "Thousands Are Sailing" from RS&TL by The Pogues.
Peace-
Norm

[Ken_McAlinden]

I love that song "Thousands Are Sailing" from RS&TL by The Pogues.
Good song. It was actually from the "If I Should Fall from Grace with God" album. It was written by Philip Chevron and sung very well by MacGowan. My favorite tracks from Rum, Sodomy & the Lash are MacGowan's "A Pair of Brown Eyes" and their take on Eric Bogle's "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda"

Regards,

[teaser5]

Good song. It was actually from the "If I Should Fall from Grace with God" album. It was written by Philip Chevron and sung very well by MacGowan

I sit corrected.
Thanks Ken!
Best-
Norm

[Scotian]

Rum, Sodomy & the Lash is one of my all time favorite albums. I remember the first time I saw the video for "Dirty Old Town", I spent most of the time staring at Shane's teeth & then thinking, what an amazing song. I then had to get the album ordered in. Life is so much easier now for purchasing music.

[FredCamp]

I found the dvd of this documentary by accident last year, just from doing a Pogues search at Amazon. I agree Shane is in bad shape, but look how much he has survived. He may be another Keith Richard.

[lil.fred]

I agree Shane is in bad shape, but look how much he has survived. He may be another Keith Richard.

I yield to no one in my admiration for Shane MacGowan's songwriting, singing, and overall "thang," but I do not think what he has achieved can be described as "surviving" except in the most limited sense. He's a casualty - like other brilliantly gifted people including Syd Barrett and Sly Stone - and like thousands of other people who don't happen to be musicians. Read his interview-autobiography "A Drink With Shane MacGowan". A fascinating, but not inspiring, document.

[Chris R]

Shane and The Popes were supposed to headline Thursday evening two years ago at the Calgary Folk Music Festival. It never happened. MacGowan's whole North American tour was cancelled IIRC. Very sad. A lot of old Pogues fans, myself included, were very disappointed when we found out about the cancellation after having purchased our tickets/passes. MacGowan was replaced at the last minute by Chantal Kreviazuk, who BTW put on a wonderful performance. One of the Folk Festival directors told me that Shane was in no condition to tour. :(

[Peter D]

What a waste of talent. IIRC, the Pogues threatened to kick Shane out of the band solely to get him to sober up. When he didn't, they held to their "tough love" stance and gave him the boot. I really hoped that by now he would have gotten his act together, but at this point, sadly, I think he's a lost cause.

Contrary bastard that I am, it doesn't seem like the Christmas season to me unless I hear "Fairytale of New York" at least once...

[John Moschella]

As another big Pogues fan who followed the band from the very begining the initial post comes as no great shock. While the overweight part is new, he always had rotten teeth and talked in a drunken slur. Was he ever sober for a live show? Not one that I went to. The Pogues could really play and Shane wrote some terrific songs (A Pair of Brown Eyes, Dark Streets of London ... there are so many), but he is a very distructive character.

[Scotian]

Here's quite a thoughtful review of the DVD:

http://www.greenmanreview.com/film/film_fallfromgrace.html