Shane MacGowan was not a man who was going to live to be a 100. He lived hard and he drank hard, and took illegal drugs at a pace that should’ve killed him years ago. Sometimes it seemed he did so just too live up to the persona he had created for himself.
For those of you unfamiliar with the man and his music, Shane and his band The Pogues are almost single-handedly responsible for creating the genre of Irish punk. Before Dropkick Murphys or Flogging Molly, there was Shane and The Pogues. He and his band took the lilting deedily-deedily-dee so common to traditional Irish music and added some loud guitars, sometimes filthy but poetic lyrics and a whole lotta attitude.
Shane died this week at age 65 after a prolonged illness. It seems fitting that he passed at Christmas time since he and his band are arguably best known for the profane and politically incorrect yet beautiful Christmas song Fairytale of New York. Thousands of mourners lined the route of the funeral procession and sang the song with pride and passion as the hearse conveyed the body of this indigent street punk who, through his music, became a beloved national hero of his country with his jacked up teeth becoming as great of a symbol of Ireland as the shamrock or the tri-color flag.
Glen Hansard (who you may remember for his hit Falling Slowly from Once, the movie in which he starred) fronted a large contingent of Irish musicians and were joined by folksinger Lisa O’Neill to perform this song Friday at Shane’s funeral at Saint Mary of the Rosary Church in Nenagh, Tipperary.
If I could still cry I would.
