by Averilla

Created on: March 19, 2007   Last Updated: January 19, 2010

I remember, back in the eighties, my Uncle, whom I lived with for a while, bursting into the house, fresh from a trip to Ireland, and proclaiming with a gleam in his eyes "I have got something here that is gonna blow you away !" With that he strode over to the sound system, thrust in a cassette, cracked open a few beers (no fine wines in those drunken days of rebelliousness ! Hee Hee) and cranked up the sounds to full volume ! What followed opened up my senses to a whole new type of music for me......The Pogues.

How to describe them..well there's a thing...they do not fit into any existing category as far as I am concerned. Their music is a mix of traditional Irish Folk and and a type of Punk Rock synonymous with The Clash. Fronted by the infamous, drunken and exquisitely ugly 'Shane McGowan', they were signed by Stiff Records in 1984 and 'Rum Sodomy and the Lash' is their second album after 'Red Roses for me', and arguably, but as far as I am concerned, their best album.

'Rum, Sodomy and the Lash' takes it's name from the famous Churchill quote 'don't talk to me of naval tradition, it's all Rum Sodomy and the Lash !', the album cover is very distinct, it copies a famous painting 'The Raft of the Medusa' (1816) a famous shipwreck off the coast of Africa, and depicts dying naked bodies, with the members of the band's faces cleverly superimposed on some of the bodies. The album was produced by the talented Elvis Costello, and is , in my opinion, awesome.

*THE BEST TRACKS*

The album opens with my favourite track..THE SICK BED OF CUCHULAINN

This is a lyrical masterpiece, penned by Mcgowan himself, and he sings of the ancient Cuchulainn, who was a powerful leader from Irish mythology.He dreams of being attacked by powerful women with horsewhips and is subsequently taken ill, as a result of which he lies asleep in his sickbed for a year.

"They took you out into the street and kicked you in the brains
So you walked back in through a bolted door and did it all again
At the sick bed of Cuchulainn we'll kneel and say a prayer
And the ghosts are rattling at the door and the devil's in the chair"

This varies from a slow beat to up tempo with the traditional folk Uilean pipes and fiddle wanting you to get up and tap your feet, must be played loud for full effect , McGowans husky and coarse voice lends itself to the heady atmosphere of the track.....Brilliant.

I'M A MAN YOU DON"T MEET EVERYDAY

This is a traditional scottish song, but made their own by their unique arrangement,

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