It’s of a gentleman soldier as a sentry he did stand He saluted a fair maiden by a waving of his hand And then he boldly kissed her and he passed it off as a joke He drilled her up in a sentry box wrapped up in a soldier’s cloak And the drums are going a rap a tap tap — The Gentleman Soldier (trad)
Once upon a time there was a band called The Pogues whose original name was — before a BBC suit realized what it meant and said that they needed to change their name if the Beeb was to air their material — Pogue Mahone, Irish gaelic for ‘kiss my arse.’ Pogue mahone was indeed a good description of this band: their wild and drunken mix of trad material with the energetic kiss off attitude of punk created a musical style that London — and the greater world of rock ‘n’ roll — had never seen. Indeed many wished they still hadn’t seen (or heard) it!
The Pogues broke up not long after frontman Sean MacGowan left the group* but that was no matter as the best work the Pogues did was in their first decade: that glorious period in which everything they did was bloody fucking brillant: just listen to ‘The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’, ‘Fairytale of New York’, ‘Sally MacLennane’, or ‘Wild Cats of Kilkenny’ to see just how brillant they were. Sean MacGowan and company drunk with a splitting headache were far better than damn near all of the ‘Danny Boy’ style Irish bands. Hell, just check out their version of the Steeleye Span popularized ‘The Gentlemen Soldier’ to see how they brought a fresh feel to old ballads.
Rum, Sodomy & the Lash was certainly one of the oddest albums ever released unto an unsuspecting folk universe. It’s thrash folk at its very best with mangled lyrics by Shane McGowan and Spider Stacy merging with music best described as Irish-Middle Eastern punk tinged with rock-and-reel. Best cuts are ‘The Band Played Waltzing Matilda,’ ‘I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Every Day,’ and ‘Wild Cats of Kilkenny.’
Ann Scanlon has captured the Pogues from their very first days in early ’82 ’til a decade later when they released their only commercially successful album If I Should Fall From Grace With God, an album that really did sound like it was produced instead of being simply tossed togather. Ann’s clearly at ease with the band. And it’s clear she had the full cooperation of the band, their friends, and assorted never do well hanger-ons. This is a fuckin’ brillant work of ethnograpghy that catches the evolution of a band as no other book I’ve read has done.
Yes, read The Pogues: The Lost Decade if you’re a fan of the Pogues, but those who should really read it are those interested in how the neverending folk process stays alive. For like it or not, the Pogues did a fuckin’ brillant job of kicking folk in its ever so fat arse and making the lazy old sod get back on its feet! We should all down a pint or three of Guiness to the lads for we all owe them for their addition to the Irish music genre.
* Yes, The Pogues did cover ‘The Gentleman Soldier’ — see their album Rum, Sodomy & the Lash.
(Omnibus Press, 1988)
