Shane MacGowan
Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan was a British and Irish singer-songwriter, musician, and poet. Best known as the original lead vocalist and primary lyricist of Celtic punk band the Pogues, MacGowan was an acclaimed songwriter whose lyrics often focused on the Irish emigrant experience. He also received widespread media attention for his personal life, which included decades of heavy alcohol and drug abuse.
As a teenager, MacGowan became active on the London punk scene under the alias Shane O'Hooligan. In 1977, with then-girlfriend Shanne Bradley, he co-founded his first band, the Nips. In 1982, with Spider Stacy and Jem Finer, he co-founded the Pogues, who fused punk influences with traditional Irish music. MacGowan was the principal songwriter and lead vocalist on the band's first five studio albums, including Rum Sodomy & the Lash and the critically acclaimed and commercially successful If I Should Fall from Grace with God. MacGowan and Finer co-wrote the Christmas hit single "Fairytale of New York", which MacGowan recorded as a duet with Kirsty MacColl; the song remains a Christmas favourite in Ireland and Britain and was certified sextuple platinum in the UK in 2023.
The Pogues dismissed MacGowan during a 1991 tour of Japan, as his drug and alcohol dependency increasingly affected their live shows. He formed a new band, Shane MacGowan and The Popes, with which he released two studio albums; he also collaborated with artists including Johnny Depp, Nick Cave, Sinéad O'Connor, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Dropkick Murphys and Cruachan. In 2001, he rejoined the Pogues for reunion shows and continued to tour with the group until it dissolved in 2014. In January 2018, to mark his 60th birthday, he was honoured with a gala concert at Dublin's National Concert Hall, where the president of Ireland presented him with a lifetime achievement award. Later that year, he married his long-term partner, journalist and writer Victoria Mary Clarke. Following years of deteriorating health, he died from pneumonia in Dublin in November 2023, aged 65.
Early life
MacGowan was born on 25 December 1957 in Pembury, Kent, the son of Irish parents who were visiting relatives in England at the time of his birth. MacGowan spent his early childhood in Tipperary, Ireland. His younger sister, Siobhan MacGowan, was born in 1963; she later became a journalist, writer, and songwriter. MacGowan and his family moved to England when he was aged six and a half. His father, Maurice, from a middle-class background in Dublin, worked in the offices of department store C&A; his mother, Therese, from Tipperary, worked as a typist at a convent, having previously been a singer, traditional Irish dancer, and model.MacGowan lived in many parts of southeast England, such as Brighton, London, and the home counties, and attended an English public school. His father encouraged his precocious interest in literature; by age 11, MacGowan was reading authors including Fyodor Dostoyevsky, John Steinbeck, and James Joyce. At 13, he was among the winners of a literary contest sponsored by the Daily Mirror. In 1971, he left Holmewood House preparatory school in Langton Green, Kent, with a literature scholarship for Westminster School. Found in possession of drugs, he was expelled in his second year. At age 17, he spent six months in a psychiatric hospital due to drug addiction; while there, he was also diagnosed with acute situational anxiety. Briefly enrolled at St Martin's School of Art, he worked at the Rocks Off record shop in central London, and started a punk fanzine called Bondage under the pseudonym Shane O'Hooligan. He was first publicly noted in 1976 at a concert by London punk rock band the Clash, where his earlobe was damaged by future Mo-dettes bassist Jane Crockford. A photographer took a picture of him covered in blood, which was reported in the music paper NME with the headline "Cannibalism at Clash Gig". Shortly after this, he and bassist Shanne Bradley formed the punk band the Nipple Erectors.
Career
1977–1982: Early music career
In 1977, MacGowan entered the London punk scene as the frontman of The Nipple Erectors, later renamed The Nips, a band that combined punk and rockabilly influences and gained some recognition on the independent music circuit after they released several singles before disbanding in the early 1980s. Around this time, MacGowan also fronted a short-lived project called The New Republicans, which reflected his interest in blending Irish folk influences with punk. During these years, MacGowan was immersed in London’s punk milieu, but his summers in County Tipperary and his upbringing in an Irish household also kept him rooted in traditional music and republican culture. By the early 1980s, he had begun collaborating with Spider Stacy and Jem Finer in an Irish folk side project that eventually developed into Pogue Mahone, marking the transition from his punk beginnings to the hybrid sound that would define his career.1982–1991: Leading the Pogues
MacGowan drew upon his Irish heritage when founding the Pogues and changed his early punk style for a more traditional sound with tutoring from his extended family. Many of his songs were influenced by Irish nationalism, Irish history, the experiences of the Irish diaspora, and London life in general. These influences were documented in the biography Rake at the Gates of Hell: Shane MacGowan in Context. He often cited the 19th-century Irish poet James Clarence Mangan and playwright Brendan Behan as influences.The Pogues' most critically acclaimed album was If I Should Fall from Grace with God, which also marked the high point of the band's commercial success. Between 1985 and 1987, MacGowan co-wrote "Fairytale of New York", which he performed with Kirsty MacColl, and remains a perennial Christmas favourite; in 2004, 2005 and 2006, it was voted favourite Christmas song in a poll by music video channel VH1. Other notable songs he performed with the Pogues include "Dirty Old Town", "Sally MacLennane" and "The Irish Rover". In the following years MacGowan and the Pogues released several albums. In 1988, he co-wrote "Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six", a song by the Pogues which proved highly controversial due to its support of the Birmingham Six – six men wrongly convicted of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, but still serving prison sentences for the bombings at the time – and was banned on British commercial TV and radio.
In Yokohama, Japan, during a 1991 tour, the Pogues dismissed MacGowan for unprofessional behaviour. The band's performances had been affected by MacGowan's drug and alcohol problems, and his bandmates parted ways with him following "a string of no-shows, including when the Pogues were opening for Dylan".
1992–2005: Shane MacGowan and the Popes
After MacGowan had been dismissed from the Pogues, he formed a new band, Shane MacGowan and The Popes. The new band recorded two studio albums, a live album, three tracks on the Popes Outlaw Heaven and a live DVD; the band also toured internationally. In 1997, MacGowan appeared on Lou Reed's "Perfect Day", covered by numerous artists in aid of Children in Need. It was the UK's number one single for three weeks, in two separate spells. Selling over a million copies, the record contributed £2,125,000 to the charity's highest fundraising total in six years. From December 2003 up to May 2005, Shane MacGowan and the Popes toured extensively in the UK, Ireland and Europe.2001–2014: Return to the Pogues
The Pogues and MacGowan reformed for a sell-out tour in 2001 and each year from 2004 to 2009 for further tours, including headline slots at Guilfest in England and the Azkena Rock Festival in the Basque Country. In May 2005, MacGowan rejoined the Pogues permanently. That same year, the Pogues re-released "Fairytale of New York" to raise funds for the Justice For Kirsty Campaign and Crisis at Christmas. The single was the best-selling Christmas-themed single of 2005, reaching number 3 in the UK Charts that year.In 2006, he was seen many times with the Libertines and Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty; on occasions MacGowan joined Babyshambles on stage. Other famous friends included Johnny Depp, who appeared in the video for "That Woman's Got Me Drinking", and Joe Strummer, who referred to MacGowan as "one of the best writers of the century" in an interview featured on the videogram release "Live at the Town and Country Club" from 1988. Strummer occasionally joined MacGowan and the Pogues on stage. He also worked with Nick Cave and joined him on stage.
About his future with the Pogues, in a 24 December 2015 interview with Vice magazine, when the interviewer asked whether the band were still active, MacGowan said: "We're not, no", saying that, since their 2001 reunion happened, "I went back with Pogues and we grew to hate each other all over again", adding: "I don't hate the band at all – they're friends. I like them a lot. We were friends for years before we joined the band. We just got a bit sick of each other. We're friends as long as we don't tour together. I've done a hell of a lot of touring. I've had enough of it."
2010–2011: The Shane Gang
In 2010, MacGowan played impromptu shows in Dublin with a new five-piece backing band, the Shane Gang, including In Tua Nua rhythm section Paul Byrne and Jack Dublin, with manager Joey Cashman on whistle. In November 2010, this line-up went to Lanzarote to record a new album. MacGowan and the Shane Gang performed at the Red Hand Rocks music festival in the Patrician Hall, Carrickmore County Tyrone in June 2011.2014–2023: Later career
MacGowan made a return to the stage on 13 June 2019 at the RDS Arena in Dublin as a guest of Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders.Following on from the success of Feis Liverpool 2018's finale, in which he was joined by artists such as Imelda May, Paddy Moloney, Albert Hammond Jr and many more, MacGowan was announced to appear on 7 July alongside a host of guests for the Feis Liverpool 2019's finale. The event was ultimately cancelled due to a lack of ticket sales and funding issues. Feis Liverpool is the UK's largest celebration of Irish music and culture.
In 2020, MacGowan reportedly returned to the studio to record several new songs with the Irish indie band Cronin.