To many people a band such as the Pogues seem as Irish as you can't get without being actually carved from the Blarney Stone. Like U2 and Guinness, all are very much products of the Emerald Isle, born of its forty shades of green. Well you can forget all the shamrocks and shenanigans both of the band s mentioned are very much the product of the London post punk scene and whilst we are on the subject most of the black stuff sold in pubs on this side of the water was probably brewed in London as well. Anyway, I mention that not to undermine either band in anyway, music is about attitude and feeling rather than a birthright requiring a particular town name on a birth certificate, it matters not where you come from geographically but its where your heart is musically that counts. They say that no matter where you go in the world, it doesn't take long to walk into a bar and find an Irishman singing, singing about going home. The difference with the Pogues is that if you walked into a bar and heard them singing in the early days, they would have been singing about smashing the place up and picking a fight. The Pogues evolved slowly like mould on a piece of bread from a number of punk bands including the wonderfully named Nipple Erectors and the Millwall Chainsaws around the close of the seventies. Punk had out lived its shelf life in many peoples opinions by then and many musicians were looking to take that punk spirit and use it to push into new directions, New Romanticism and Goth being just two of the scenes that would be created by this exodus of energy. At the time Shane MacGowan was becoming more interested in the Irish folk music and recruited some old acquaintances to breath a new life into these traditional formats. The results was a band that played Irish folk inspired music with a punk mentality and after only a couple of years the band had toured as the support to Clash, the band that inspired MacGowan in the first place, signed to Stiff records and released this highly acclaimed debut album, "Red Roses for Me" The ragged trousered ranters had arrived.
The opening number "Transmetropolitan" has an opening refrain that would lull even the folk purists into a false sense of security. The wash of an accordion and a strummed guitar ease you in but there is a growing drone in the background that grows and finally breaks in a wave of attitude as the rest of the band kick in and MacGowan lays out his tale of hooliganism and rabble rousing. The Pogues have the knack of making new songs sound old and at the same time older traditional numbers sound new until all you are left with is this punkesque folk melting pot. Largely played on acoustic instruments, mandolins, banjos, guitars, accordions and the like, this is still very much a folk line up, but the intensity and snotty nosed delivery is what sets these boys apart from what you were expecting. And if you had to hastily rethink what the band are about due to the opening number, as if to mess with your head, the next song "The Battle of Brisbane" is total Irish pub folk music. As if to pay homage to their roots this is one of two instrumentals on the album, and both this and the later "Dingle Regatta" could be the Dubliners or the Chieftains. And if you thought that you had been treated to both extremes of the band in swift succession, "The Auld Triangle" gives you a new dimension to the band, the ballad as they rework a Brendan Behan composition and even though it's a cover and a departure for the band, it still sounds totally at home on this album. Muted drums roll along in the background, an accordion plays a drone of simple notes and MacGowan's rather unique voice holds the tune, the words being the focal point of the song.
The oddly familiar "Waxie's Dargle" returns us to the bile soaked spirit of the open song. Its infectious tune and drunken yobbish delivery from the twin vocals make it hard to not tap your foot or even leap about madly depending on how many drinks you have had. Pogues albums always seem to be a trade off in many ways. Some of the songs, such as the one just gone, seem raw and amateurish when heard in the cold controlled media of the CD player. What you need to remember is that the Pogues are essentially a live band and these songs are best appreciated with a drink in one hand and the other slapping the table in the smoky back room of a late night venue, ahhthose were the days. What you gain however in the place of that loss of atmosphere is a greater appreciation of Shane McGowan's writing ability. I'm sure that he would be the first to admit that he is far from the best singer in the world, but if you want glossy soulless over produced vocals then you always have Westlife or every other pop band since. As a live act his lack of clarity, 15 words to the dozen songs and often half cut state meant that the splendid lyrics were often lost in the chaos on stage. On album however, you get a chance to appreciate just how good his story telling style is. There are strings of references both to his Irish heritage and his London surroundings and on CD you get to appreciate that in full.
One of the highlights of the album, for me, follows. "Boys From The County Hell" is another tale of drinking, fighting and general mayhem. A fast paced folk white knuckle ride with some haunting whistle playing soloing throughout the song from Spider Stacey and the most memorable chorus of;
"Lend me ten pounds and I'll buy you a drink
And mother wake me early in the morning"
It has been said that this song was arranged in ten minutes and it does sound like it. That is not a derogatory remark, I mean that there is nothing here that can be regarded as superfluous, and everything is simple, considered and necessary to the song. No flash musical egos at work just musicians that know the art of writing a good song. The Pogues always had something to say politically and here reference fall out of every line, be it about the famous Irish Blueshirts, the My Lai massacre in Vietnam or the Spanish Civil War, these may appear simple drinking songs but under the surface hi-jinks is a keen observer of the modern world and some very intricate and interesting reference points. Poguetry in motion? Well maybe not. "Dark Streets of London" is a deeply personal tale and one of the first original songs to work its way into the bands set at a time when they mainly did covers. A mid tempo jig that sits as a nice balance to the other extremes the album has to offer. Another early song is "Streams of Whiskey" a story that alludes to Flann O' Briens farcical tale of a mountain with a stream of whiskey flowing from it and also saying something about alcoholism in general and its close association with so many Irish writers. In fact with so many literary references being littered about from Joyce to Beckett and a host of others, the mental picture of McGowan as a drunken paddy is shattered for a more noble and flawed romantic, at least in the eyes of those that take time out to see what he is singing about.
Other highlights are the chaotic free for all "Down in the Ground Where the Dead men go" and the traditional "Greenland Whale Fisheries" .If you manage to get your hands on the re-mastered version however you are treated to a number of excellent bonus tracks. There is a raw version of Eric Bogle's "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" a chilling account of a young Australian soldier caught up in the horrors of Gallipoli. The band was to revisit it on the album "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, (your next purchase incidentally) and it has been covered buy numerous folk luminaries not least of which is June Tabor. A simple tune and a steady rhythm add to the intensity of the vocals but by the second album for this song alone for a masterly and powerful rendition, not that the one here is too bad.
Nineteen songs appear on the re-released version and treat you to a time when the Pogues were a breath of fresh air in the increasingly fashion conscious post punk era of the mid eighties. Buy it, play it load and dance like there is no tomorrow. It may be folk music essentially but its folk music that goes for the jugular.