On the heels of some reunion shows in the UK this fall, the remastered reissues (with bonus tracks) of all seven Pogues records (including the post-Shane Pogues records), and the promise of a box set in 2005, I ask of you: HOW MUCH DO YOU LOVE SOME POGUETRY IN MOTION???? Translation: me likey the Pogues!!!

I hear from a friend in the UK who saw one of the shows that Shane can barely sing anymore, and looks like hell (he's looked like hell for at least 15 years now!) but that the show was loads of fun.

Put simply, the Pogues turned me onto Celtic music and instrumentation by selling me on the punk rock aspect of that music. I've alwayss felt Shane was an underrated songwriter, easily on a par with the esteemed songsmiths of his era (Westerberg, Eitzel, Costello). For proof, check out "Fairytale of New York" (Rest in Peace, Kirsty!) or "A Pair of Brown Eyes" or "London Girl" or "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" (like compressing Joyce's Dubliners or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man into two minutes) or "The Ghost of a Smile" or any number of other Pogues classics.

You already know I love the Pogues and have all the albums, including the EP "Poguetry in Motion". The first five albums and the EP are all on vinyl. Their albums pretty much made my Top Five almost every year. I turned my wife onto them and she loves them too. In fact, we used to talk about Shane MacGowan's many problems all the time since he was in the news so much.
I'm just sad I didn't see them in concert in the 80s; that would have been killer! If anybody here doesn't like the Pogues, then you can "Pogue Mahone!" Only kidding, son.

I never saw the Pogues, but I saw Shane with the Popes in Atlanta in the early 90's and it was an apt substitute. They were good, the songs on those Popes records were strong ("The Church of the Holy Spook"!), and they seemed to be having fun. Shane looked blitzed, of course, and had moments where he seemed ready to fall over, but mostly a pretty solid show.

A good read, if your Shane-inclined, is the book A Drink With Shane McGowan which consists of pseudo-interviews about his life and history done with Shane by his wife over (natch) drinks.

The Pogues fucking own.

They own what? Damaged livers?

An example of the brilliance that is the Pogues, from "The Old Main Drag" off of Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash:

"And now I'm lying here, had too much booze,
I've been shat on and spat on, raped and abused,
I know that I'm dying and I wish I could beg
For some money to take me from the old main drag..."

Yeah, The Pogues are easily one of the best bands of the last 25 years in my opinion. I saw one of those reunion shows a few years ago, and it was great. Shane sang Fairytale of New York with his mother...
I have all their stuff aswell, and while we all know If I Should Fall From Grace With God and Rum, Sodomy and the Lash are classics, songs like 'Lorca's Novena' off lesser albums like Hell's Ditch are incredible too.
A Swedish girl I met in Sevilla once told me she thought they were like The Corrs on speed, but once I was finished laughing I told her that was harsh.
I wonder what she's up to now...