rum, sodomy & the lash

The Pogues went a' rovin' down the old main drag of a dirty old town to turn out the twisted and torn rambunctious magnificence of this anecdotal earthly delight.  Their debut album 'Red Roses for Me' had failed to capture the energy of their live performances; so for their next album they brought in the big guns.   

'Rum Sodomy & the Lash' was produced by a bearded Elvis Costello at Elephant Studios in London.   The sessions featured  Shane MacGowan on vocals;   Spider Stacy on tin whistle;   James Fearnley on accordion;  Jem Finer on banjo;  Cait O'Riordan on bass and vocals;   Andrew Ranken on drums; and  Philip Chevron on guitar and mandolin;   with   Henry Benagh on fiddle;   Dick Cuthell on horn;   and  Tommy Keane on uileann pipes.    During the proceedings a romance developed between the producer and Cait.  


O’Riordan almost remembers:   “I was just drunk... I was the only girl, and I had a lot of chips on my shoulder, so I tried to drink as much as them and be the roughest and toughest. And, of course, I can’t drink; I’d get drunk so fast...I was a music-mad kid, and after school, which was right out near Heathrow, I’d go into London and into this record shop. And, one day, they were just closing up and asked me if I wanted to go to the pub with them. Shane walks in, and I recognised him, because he’d been in a band called The Nips. And the first time I met him I said, ‘Wow, you’re a Nip,’ and he said, ‘Am I?’ and pulled a big face at me. I can’t believe how lucky I was. But I don’t think I ever took him for granted. I always knew he was a genius, but I don’t think I realised how much of a one-off he was. I think I just assumed everyone I’d meet was going to be a genius...Once the teenage thing had kicked in, I think, I was in lockdown. I went from being an angry schoolchild to being an angry homeless kid — I left as soon as it was legal — to being the angry kid in The Pogues, to being the angry one who was married to the famous guy.”

MacGowan muses:  "Well, there are similar Irish and Scottish folk songs. There's only eight notes, or sixteen if you want to count it the proper way. I like story songs. Most really good songs, I'm not necessarily saying mine, but if you think of rock & roll, or blues, go as far back as you want, they all have a story. They're all about a revolution, or a battle, or a love affair, or whatever. I came from a really musical family. Everybody played music and told stories and made up songs. All the neighbours did as well...That's the thing about Irish writing. It developed from story-telling. Story-telling is a huge thing in Ireland, or used to be. All the playwrights, all the novelists, all the poets… well they're all poets. It's all poetry, really, the same way that Shakespeare is poetry in play-form...Music and poetry are meant to be performed. I mean you can get a really good poem, but if somebody reads it out without really thinking about what it means then it's a total waste of everybody's time."


'Rum Sodomy & the Lash' sailed to number thirty-nine in Sweden, seventeen in New Zealand, and thirteen in the UK.   The title comes from a description of the British Navy that is often attributed to Winston Churchill:  "Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash."    The album cover is based on the painting The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault, with the faces of the band painted by Peter Mennim.  

http://www.pogues.com/

http://www.poguetry.com/rsl.htm






"A Pair of Brown Eyes"
MacGowan says:   "That song's about a guy who's pissed off because he's broken up with his girlfriend.  There's also this older guy whinging away in the corner. There's people singing songs and it gives you the titles of them. There's a bit where Johnny Cash sings 'A Thing Called Love' on the jukebox, and 'My Elusive Dreams' is by Ray Lynam and Philomena Begley. That particular song is kind of autobiographical. It's set in The Scottish Stores which is an Irish bar near Camden...There'll always be someone, you'd be sitting there feeling miserable and some old geezer says: 'Why do you look so bloody miserable? Listen to what happened to me!' and he tells him about whatever war it was. Of course, there was a war going on at the time in Ireland, as usual."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNtQ5AnRlz8






'Rum Sodomy & the Lash'  full album:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL68D998D2C9FC89B8





Side one
"The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn" (Shane MacGowan) – 2:59
"The Old Main Drag" (MacGowan) – 3:19
"Wild Cats of Kilkenny" (MacGowan, Jem Finer) – 2:48
"I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day" (Traditional) – 2:55
"A Pair of Brown Eyes" (MacGowan) – 4:54
"Sally MacLennane" (MacGowan) – 2:43
"A Pistol for Paddy Garcia"  bonus track (Finer) – 2:32
Side two
"Dirty Old Town" (Ewan MacColl) – 3:45
"Jesse James" (Traditional) – 2:58
"Navigator" (Phil Gaston) – 4:12
"Billy's Bones" (MacGowan) – 2:02
"The Gentleman Soldier" (Traditional) – 2:04
"And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" (Eric Bogle) – 8:10




live 1985

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21C-I-SwxJ4


- Greenland Whale Fisheries 0:01
- Repeal of the Licensing Laws 2:25
- Boys from County Hell 4:25
- Pair of Brown Eyes 7:10
- Sally MacLennane 11:33
- Dingle Regatta 14:10
- Paddy on the Railway 16:42
- Battle of Brisbane 19:53
- Waxies Dargle 21:30
- Dark Streetos of London 23:30
- Muirsheen Durkin 26:35
- Whiskey youre the Devil 28:30
- Battle of Brisbane 30:44
- Transmetropolitan 32:25
- The Band played Waltzing Matilda 33:28


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAKyA2ttv0I


Intro song-Battle of Brisbane
2 Waxie's Dargle
3 Dark streets of London
4 Muirsheen Durkin
5 Whiskey you're the devil
6 Battle of Brisbane...again
7 Transmetropolitan
8 The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

if i should fall from grace with God

The Pogues expanded their merry band and diversified their sound to great success with the drunken Gaelic punk revelry of this irreverant magnum opus.  After the success of their second album 'Rum Sodomy & the Lash', the band was resistant to recording a followup.  Bassist Cait O'Riordan married the producer of that album Elvis Costello and left the band.  They brought in  Darryl Hunt from Plummet Airlines and Pride of the Cross to take her place; as well as a  Terry Woods from Steeleye Span.  The excessive drinking of lead singer Shane MacGowan had created problems as well:  "There's been a long history of the drink angle being concentrated on. The fact is, we don't drink more than any other band, you know. When we started we were playing in bars. We had short hair and suits and we drank on stage, right? We regarded ourselves as a dance band, an Irish dance band basically that also did slower numbers with more feeling. Because we drank on stage, which lots do, and because our audience had a good time and got drunk and generally looned around a bit, that's where all that thing came from...At one stage I was doing a lot of whiskey. I started doing my stomach in. I wasn't eating enough or anything. I was leading up to an ulcer, but I never got that far...So pulled out. I still drink a lot, but I try to lay off the spirits, whereas I used to drink shorts all the time."

The band finally went into the studio with producer Steve Lillywhite who managed to rein in their raucous energy enough to cut through the din and come up with some original melodies.  The sessions included Shane MacGowan on vocals and guitar; Spider Stacy on tin whistle and vocals; James Fearnley on accordion, piano, mandolin, dulcimer, guitar, cello, and percussion; Jem Finer on banjo and saxophone; Andrew Ranken on drums and vocals; Philip Chevron on guitar, mandolin; Darryl Hunt on bass, percussion, and vocals; and Terry Woods on cittern lute, concertina, strings, banjo, dulcimer, guitar, and vocals; with Ron Kavana on banjo, spoons, and mandolin; Siobhan Sheahan on harp; Brian Clarke on alto saxophone; Joe Cashman on tenor saxophone; Paul Taylor on trombone; Chris Lee on trumpet; Eli Thompson on trumpet; and Kirsty MacColl on vocals. 

'If I Should Fall From Grace With God' was a rousing success, going to number eighty-eight in the US and number three in the UK. The expansion of their sound from the punkish covers of traditional Irish songs to a more diverse mix that added jazz, Spanish and Middle Eastern folk made for something completely new.  Shane called himself "a lapsed Catholic, but I'm still a Catholic. I wouldn't say I'm a bad Catholic. What my Catholic upbringing means to me now is, I have an idea of the connection between the physical world and the supernatural world, or whatever, and a lot of things still really move me. I occasionally go to Mass and that still moves me. Things like the rosary still move me. There's alot of different ways of appreciating life: through music, or nature, or through people whether it's conversationally or sexually or just looking at them. A very deep, heavy, poverful, symbolic religion like Catholicism is another way of appreciating that. I know it's been corrupted over the years, and abused. I think the chruch's position on things like divorce in Ireland is wrong, in terms that it causes a lot of suffering. I don't think these should be crucial issues in the church. But I think most religions have got heavy attitudes about things like that. Catholicism is not an isolated religion."






"If I Should Fall from Grace with God"
went to number fifty-eight in the UK and four in Ireland.

If I should fall from grace with God
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I'm buried 'neath the sod
But the angels won't receive me
Let me go, boys
Let me go, boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry
This land was always ours
Was the proud land of our fathers
It belongs to us and them
Not to any of the others
Let them go, boys
Let them go, boys
Let them go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry
Bury me at sea
Where no murdered ghost can haunt me
If I rock upon the waves
Then no corpse can lie upon me
It's coming up three, boys
Keeps coming up three, boys
Let them go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry
If I should fall from grace with God
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I'm buried 'neath the sod
But the angels won't receive me
Let me go, boys
Let me go, boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry









"Fairytale of New York"
Shane says:  “It was the perfect time, and the perfect female singer.  But it was kept off the top of the charts in England by the worst record the Pet Shop Boys ever made.” It reached number two in the UK and number one in Ireland.



It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me,
Won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you
Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true
They've got cars
Big as bars
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand
On a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me
Broadway was waiting for me
You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on the corner
Then danced through the night
The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing 'Galway Bay'
And the bells are ringing
Out for Christmas day
You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Living there almost dead
On a drip in that bed
You scum bag
You maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God
It's our last
The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing 'Galway Bay'
And the bells are ringing
Out for Christmas day
I could have been someone
Well, so could anyone
You took my dreams
From me when I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you
The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing 'Galway Bay'
And the bells are ringing
Out for Christmas day





'If I Should Fall from Grace with God'
full album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Lw9545dCM



1. "If I Should Fall from Grace with God"   MacGowan 2:20
2. "Turkish Song of the Damned"   MacGowan, Finer 3:27
3. "Bottle of Smoke"   MacGowan, Finer 2:47
4. "Fairytale of New York"   MacGowan, Finer 4:36
5. "Metropolis"   Finer 2:50
6. "Thousands Are Sailing"   Chevron 5:28
7. "Fiesta"   MacGowan, Finer 4:13
8. "Medley: The Recruiting Sergeant/The Rocky Road to Dublin/The Galway Races"   Traditional 4:03
9. "Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six"   MacGowan, Woods 4:39
10. "Lullaby of London"   MacGowan 3:32
11. "Sit Down by the Fire"   MacGowan 2:18
12. "The Broad Majestic Shannon"   MacGowan 2:55
13. "Worms"   Traditional 1:01
14. "The Battle March Medley"   Woods 4:10
15. "The Irish Rover" (bonus track, not on original release) Joseph Crofts/Traditional  
16. "Mountain Dew" (bonus track, not on original release) Traditional  
17. "Shanne Bradley" (bonus track, not on original release) MacGowan  
18. "Sketches of Spain" (bonus track, not on original release) The Pogues  
19. "South Australia"   Traditional 3:27