Pogues singer Shane MacGowan, ‘magnificent loser,’ dies

2023-11-30 14:41:40
Shane MacGowan, en Irlande, en janvier 2017. CLODOGH KILCOYNE/REUTERS

“Magnificent loser”, “celestial charlot”… Shane MacGowan, who died Thursday, November 30 at the age of 65, carried this reputation throughout his career. First there is its incredible “mouth”, its bulging eyes, its prominent ears and its unattractive teeth. A personality with a self-destructive tendency, a notorious heavy drinker, who is also addicted to narcotics of all kinds, the singer of the group The Pogues has never hidden his preference for the bottom of the class, the forgotten ones. The success of his group paradoxically only increased this unease within him, this idea of ​​not being in the right place. And then, there is the exceptional lyricist, the raw and funny poet, of the caliber of Tom Waits, teller of stories filled with compassion for the marginalized and shattered destinies.

Born on December 25, 1957 in Kent, England, to Irish parents, Shane MacGowan grew up in the Irish countryside until the age of 6 and a half, before his family returned to England to settle in the London suburbs. . His father works in a department store; her mother, a former singer and traditional dancer, was notably a model during her youth in Dublin.

A shy boy, raised in the Catholic faith, the teenager has difficulty adapting to his new school environment, has a series of runs away and expulsions (he is caught in possession of amphetamines). An episode marked him forever: at the age of 16, he spent a stay in a psychiatric hospital in Dublin, following overconsumption of doses of Valium prescribed by mistake. “To see and hear all this fucking horror and misery, it changed a lot of things in me”he confides to journalist Nick Kent, in The Dark Stuff. L’envers du rock (2006).

Explosion punk

Just released from the asylum, he took the full brunt of the punk explosion, after attending a Sex Pistols concert. His first hour of glory, so to speak, took place during a Clash concert in 1976, where he had his earlobe torn off. The scene, immortalized in a photo, made the headline of a popular daily: “Cannibalism at a rock concert”. He formed a punk rockabilly group in 1978, The Nipple Erectors, with James Fearnley, future accordionist for the Pogues, as well as Jon Moss, who would later found Culture Club, with Boy George. Then he formed a second group, The Chainsaws, more short-lived.

Bored with punk, he turned to Irish folk music with some squat knowledge under the name Pogue Mahone (literally “kiss my ass” in Gaelic). In addition to James Fearnley, he is joined by Jem Finer on banjo, flautist Spider Stacy, bassist Cait O’Riordan (future wife of Elvis Costello) and drummer Andrew Ranken. The group opted for the shortened name The Pogues in 1983, then signed, the following year, with the independent label Stiff Records, which licensed their first self-produced single, Dark Streets of London. The first album of the group The Pogues, Red Roses for Me (1984), with modest sales, lays the foundations of his style: Celtic music inspired by veterans The Dubliners, all sprinkled with a punk banter or a unique intoxication, it depends.

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