London –
Shane McGowan, the singer-songwriter best known for the Christmas ballad “Fairy Tale of New York” and frontman of the Celtic punk band The Pogues, died Thursday, his family announced. He was 65 years old.
His wife Victoria Clarke, sister Siobhan and father Maurice said in a statement: “It is with deep sadness and heavy hearts that we announce the passing of the most beautiful, dearest and beloved Shane McGowan.”
The singer passed away peacefully surrounded by his family, the statement added.
The musician had been hospitalized in Dublin for several months after being diagnosed with viral encephalitis at the end of 2022. He was discharged from the hospital last week, just shy of his Christmas birthday.
The Pogues fused traditional Irish music with rock’n’roll to create a unique and captivating blend, but McGowan became as famous for his drunken slurred performances as his powerful songwriting.
His songs blended gruesomeness and sentimentality, from raucous anthems to snapshots of gutter life to unexpectedly tender love songs. The Pogues’ most famous song, “Fairy Tale of New York,” is a bittersweet Christmas classic that begins with the decidedly un-festive words, “It’s Christmas Eve, baby, in a drunk tank.” be.
Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald was among the many people in Ireland to pay their respects to McGowan.
“Shane was a poet, a dreamer, and a champion of social justice,” McDonald said. “No one told the Irish story like Shane – a story of immigration, heartache, emigration, redemption, love and joy.”
McGowan was born in England to Irish parents on Christmas Day 1957, and spent his childhood in the Irish countryside before his family moved back to London. Ireland remained at the center of his imagination and yearnings throughout his life. He grew up immersed in Irish music absorbed by his family and neighbors, along with the sounds of rock, Motown, reggae, and jazz.
He attended Westminster School, an elite school in London, but was expelled and became ill as a teenager and spent time in a psychiatric hospital.
McGowan embraced the punk scene that exploded in England in the mid-1970s. He joined a band called the Nipple Erectors, performing under the name Shane O’Hourigan, and later formed The Pogues with musicians such as Jem Finner and Spider Stacey.
The Pogues (shortened from their original name, Pogue Mahone (a rude Irish word)) combined the ferocious energy of punk with traditional Irish melodies such as the banjo, tin whistle, and accordion. A fusion of instruments.
“I never thought I’d be able to play Irish music to a rock audience,” McGowan recalled in his 2001 memoir A Drink with Shane MacGowan, co-written with Clarke. “Then it finally clicked. We started an Irish band in London playing Irish music with a rock’n’roll beat. The original idea was just to spice up old stuff, but then we started writing songs. .”
The band’s first album, ‘Red Roses for Me’, was released in 1984 and included ‘Boys from the County Hell’, ‘Dark Streets of London’ and ‘Stream of Whiskey’. In addition to original songs such as ”, it included raucous versions of Irish folk songs.
McGowan’s next two albums were Lamb Sodomy and the Rush (1985) and If I Should Fall from Grace with God (1988), the latter of which He has written many songs, from cheerful provocations like the title song to ballads. “Brown Eyes” and “The Broad Majestic Shannon”.
The band also released the EP Poguetry in Motion in 1986, which included two of McGowan’s best songs, “A Rainy Night in Soho” and “The Body of an American.” The latter featured prominently in the early 2000s TV series “The Wire” and was sung at a wake for a Baltimore police officer.
“I wanted to make pure music that could be any time, that could make time irrelevant, generations and decades irrelevant,” he recalled in his memoir.
The Pogues briefly rose to the top of the world, with sold-out tours and US television appearances, but McGowan’s struggles with alcohol and drugs made the band’s activities and appearances even more erratic. He was fired by the other band members in 1991.
He played with a new band, Shane McGowan and the Popes, and reunited with the Pogues in 2001 for a series of concerts and tours.
Mr McGowan has had long-standing health problems and has been using a wheelchair since breaking his pelvis 10 years ago. He had long been famous for his broken and rotten teeth, until he received a set of implants from a dental surgeon in 2015 and described the procedure as “the Everest of dentistry.”
Mr. McGowan received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Irish President Michael D. Higgins on his 60th birthday. The occasion was commemorated with a celebratory concert at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, featuring performers including Bono, Nick Cave, Sinead O’Connor and Johnny Depp.
“Words cannot express the sense of loss I feel and the longing to see his smile one more time, the one that lit up my world,” Clarke wrote on Instagram. Ta.
“I am so blessed beyond words to have met him, loved him, loved him endlessly and unconditionally, and experienced many years of life, love, joy, fun, laughter, and so many adventures,” she said. said. I have written.
