Ok, forget dancing on Fridays, here's three tracks that sound more like the Fridays of my life. Saturday night was always for dancing, Friday was more for going down the pub after wherever I'd been that day.
It's really difficult to explain how much The Pogues meant to me. More Last Gang In Town than The Clash, almost more fire and passion than The Jam and Dexys combined and in my opinion the best lyricist of all time in Shane MacGowan. And they arrived in my life when I was about 17, searching for identity, and jumping on my Celt ancestry like it was a runaway horse.
Here's three tracks, two of which are not so typical of The Pogues and probably their best song ever.
First up is the full length Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah, where The Pogues turn to Stone of the Rolling variety. "I love your lips and I love your eyes, I love your breasts and I love your thighs" Great to turn up loud and jump up and down to.
Next is Haunted from the Sid & Nancy soundtrack, featuring Cait O'Riordan on vocals. This one is more like The Pogues doing Phil Spector by way of the Jesus & Mary Chain. And as far as I'm concerned it's as good as that sounds, one of my favourite songs from the mid 80s, all spaced out romance.
But not as good as this next one: Rainy Night In Soho. I posted this last year sometime, but it was the remixed/re-recorded/whatever version. This is the original version from the Poguetry In Motion EP, which I absolutely adore. It's rougher around the edges and simply majestic. Is there a better lyric than this song contains?
"There's a light I hold before me and you're the measure of my dreams" indeed. Indeed.
The Pogues - Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah
The Pogues - Haunted
The Pogues - Rainy Night In Soho
Friday, 6 March 2009
Friday
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11 comments:
I wasn't the biggest Pogues fan in the world, that was my mate, but I liked what I liked, especially their cover of Eric Bogle's And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. Saw them at the Barrowlands either '87 or '88, it was absolutely fucking wild.
Have been listening to the Straight To Hell soundtrack this week.
You will probably have this but when you were talking about celtic roots and Cait O'Riordan this sprung to mind.
http://www.box.net/shared/vf3r8s66ek.
They did Barrowlands Christmas 87 and again around St Paddy's in 88. Straight To Hell soundtrack's been on in this house too!
Christmas 87, remember all the mates went the following St Patricks night but I was in Aberdeen.
Seeing them again fairly recently (December 07, with Shane, against all odds, in tip-top form) 'Soho' was, for me, the stand out moment. We all knew we'd have a collective weep at 'Fairytale', for Kirsty, and it being Christmas and all, but this one...*sigh*....It was always my favourite and my best x
Hang on. I've just played it. This isn't the EP versh. This is the re-recording? Shurely??
No, the version I've posted was on the vinyl of the ep back in 86; the other version was on the cd of the ep when they re-released it in 1991
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55Yp8vecWXM
This is the other version, just to save you clicking on dead links Mr D!
And don't call me Shirley Doris!!
That sounds like the original to me. Bugger. The only way I'm going to prove this is by digging out the tape I made of my mate Carlos's EP in 1986 and having a listen.
*tumbleweed sweeps down a silent SW London street*
No doubt your lovely '12 years younger' wife is enthralled by all this. We older guys are so interesting.
She's ignoring me listening to the Pogues completely. Baby bumps are so much more interesting I suspect...
Haunted isn't just one of the best Pogues songs ever it is one of THE best songs ever.
Never understood why they gave it away to a soundtrack for an average movie but then the Pogues never did do things quite how you expected them to.
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