Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Literature, Music, Art & Entertainment => Topic started by: Nearly Sane on November 30, 2023, 02:55:45 PM
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'Cheap lousy faggot'
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67546785
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Shane, Queen Margaret Union, Christmas Ball, Glasgow University 1985
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There was a TV documentary on him a year or two ago - he seemed quite vulnerable in that. I'm surprised he lasted this long.
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Article in the Guardian with links to Youtube videos.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/30/shane-macgowans-10-greatest-recordings
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I love Fairlytale of New York (come on, who doesn't) and as someone who hit 18 in 1984 I inevitably have Rum, Soddomy and Lash and If I Should fall from Grace with God, but I was never a big fan. They just seemed too inauthentic to me - classic plastic paddies, largely English, the heart of the band being posh public school kids playing at being Oirish. Tunbridge-Wells born McGowan went to the same school as Andrew Lloyd-Webber, George Osborne and Nick Clegg for crying out loud.
I'm actually quite a fan of what people often call punk folk, but much preferred more genuinely authentic bands such as The Oyster Band, Tansads, Men They Couldn't Hang, Chumbawamba etc who just seemed more authentic musically and politically.
Saw the Pogues live a couple of time and they were so-so but nothing like the phenomenal live experience of Tansads and Oyster Band.
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"Rum, bum and concertina", surely? That was what George Melly said was the naval equivalent of "wine, women and song".
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'Cheap lousy faggot'
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67546785
Some fucking idiot recently suggested that that line should be altered to "you're cheap and your haggard", because "faggot" is an insulting name for a homosexual. Ffs! The whole point is that it's offensive: the characters in the song are not Guardian-reading Hampstead intellectuals!
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"Rum, bum and concertina", surely? That was what George Melly said was the naval equivalent of "wine, women and song".
Rum, sodomy, and the lash was one of Mr Churchill's, I believe.
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Some fucking idiot recently suggested that that line should be altered to "you're cheap and your haggard", because "faggot is an insulting name for a homosexual. Ffs! The whole point is that it's offensive: the characters in the song are not Guardian-reading Hampstead intellectuals!
It's been 'altered' for some time on the BBC and maby other media outlets. Pretty sure we had a thread on it. It was the censoring of it that prompted me to quote it here.
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It's been 'altered' for some time on the BBC and maby other media outlets. Pretty sure we had a thread on it. It was the censoring of it that prompted me to quote it here.
Come to think of it, it may be the thread on here that first alerted me to the Bowdlerised version.
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It's been 'altered' for some time on the BBC and maby other media outlets. Pretty sure we had a thread on it. It was the censoring of it that prompted me to quote it here.
Last year, if I recall, Radio 1 was playing the 'censored' version, whilst Radio 2 was playing the original; the reasoning given was that they thought a significant portion of the Radio 1 audience would be offended by hearing the original, whilst their Radio 2 audience wouldn't care (perhaps underplaying that a significant portion might be just as offended by the playing of the censored version). So the BBC isn't set on censorship, I think it's just trying to minimise complaints and, arguably, best serve its audience.
O.
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I love Fairlytale of New York (come on, who doesn't)
I'm pleased you like and enjoy the song, but please don't speak for me.
Or to answer you in a more McGowanish tone, I fucking hate it.
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There was a TV documentary on him a year or two ago - he seemed quite vulnerable in that. I'm surprised he lasted this long.
I think most people were pretty surprised he lived as long as he did.
Not sure which documentary this was but there was one produced by Jonny Depp a few years ago that was the biggest load of sh*te I've seen in a very long time. Believe Depp and McGowan was some kind of Irish mystic, brought up singing and dancing in destitution in rural Ireland. The reality being that he was born in Kent, spent a couple of years in Ireland (at an age where he probably wouldn't remember it at all) and then spent the entirety of the rest of his childhood in England, with his education entirely within English private fee paying schools.
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I'm pleased you like and enjoy the song, but please don't speak for me.
Or to answer you in a more McGowanish tone, I fucking hate it.
Fair enough - each to their own.
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Last year, if I recall, Radio 1 was playing the 'censored' version, whilst Radio 2 was playing the original; the reasoning given was that they thought a significant portion of the Radio 1 audience would be offended by hearing the original, whilst their Radio 2 audience wouldn't care (perhaps underplaying that a significant portion might be just as offended by the playing of the censored version). So the BBC isn't set on censorship, I think it's just trying to minimise complaints and, arguably, best serve its audience.
O.
By censorship
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I think most people were pretty surprised he lived as long as he did.
Not sure which documentary this was but there was one produced by Jonny Depp a few years ago that was the biggest load of sh*te I've seen in a very long time. Believe Depp and McGowan was some kind of Irish mystic, brought up singing and dancing in destitution in rural Ireland. The reality being that he was born in Kent, spent a couple of years in Ireland (at an age where he probably wouldn't remember it at all) and then spent the entirety of the rest of his childhood in England, with his education entirely within English private fee paying schools.
There seem to be a wheen of Irish people happy to pay tribute to him as an Irishman. Have you informed them that they are not allowed to do so, as you are The Irish Arbiter, and he is no Irish Rover?
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I'm pleased you like and enjoy the song, but please don't speak for me.
Or to answer you in a more McGowanish tone, I fucking hate it.
I believe Shaker, once of this parish, was of a similar opinion to you.
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There seem to be a wheen of Irish people happy to pay tribute to him as an Irishman.
My understanding was that The Pogues basically made no inroads in Ireland, until they had a song with The Dubliners (who are of course authentically Irish). Actually I don't think any of their albums sold well in Ireland and the only singles that did were either with The Dubliners or with Kirsty McColl, who had a much better track record as a solo artist in Ireland than the Pogues at the time Fairytale of New York came out.
Have you informed them that they are not allowed to do so, as you are The Irish Arbiter, and he is no Irish Rover?
They can have any opinion they like - as can I. But we aren't all entitled to our own facts, which cannot easily be disputed - effectively that McGowan was English born, raised pretty well entirely in SE England, was English private school educated and until Terry Woods and Phil Chevron joined in 85/86 not one of the Pogues failed from Ireland. Their main songwriter Jem Finer was the son of an English academic of Romanian-Jewish background.
Irish, my arse, as McGowan would have said in his carefully created Irish accent.
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My understanding was that The Pogues basically made no inroads in Ireland, until they had a song with The Dubliners (who are of course authentically Irish). Actually I don't think any of their albums sold well in Ireland and the only singles that did were either with The Dubliners or with Kirsty McColl, who had a much better track record as a solo artist in Ireland than the Pogues at the time Fairytale of New York came out.
They can have any opinion they like - as can I. But we aren't all entitled to our own facts, which cannot easily be disputed - effectively that McGowan was English born, raised pretty well entirely in SE England, was English private school educated and until Terry Woods and Phil Chevron joined in 85/86 not one of the Pogues failed from Ireland. Their main songwriter Jem Finer was the son of an English academic of Romanian-Jewish background.
Irish, my arse, as McGowan would have said in his carefully created Irish accent.
All hail The Irish Arbiter.
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All hail The Irish Arbiter.
Is this the "no true Irishman" fallacy?
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Just a few people who are trying to have their own facts about Shane MacGowan and his Irishness who must bow to Professor of Irishness O'Davey
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/2023/11/30/tributes-pour-in-for-the-pogues-frontman-nobody-told-the-irish-story-like-shane/
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Is this the "no true Irishman" fallacy?
sin ceann maith
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Just a few people who are trying to have their own facts about Shane MacGowan and his Irishness who must bow to Professor of Irishness O'Davey
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/2023/11/30/tributes-pour-in-for-the-pogues-frontman-nobody-told-the-irish-story-like-shane/
Nope - not facts, opinions.
Here is a different opinion:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/mar/17/st-patricks-day-pogues
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Nope - not facts, opinions.
Here is a different opinion:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/mar/17/st-patricks-day-pogues
Well I was only quoting you 'But we aren't all entitled to our own facts', so if you disagree with yourself, feel free to give yourself a damn good thrashing.
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"While often labelled as variously "Anglo-Irish", "Hiberno-English" or simply "Irish", amongst others,[1][2][3][4][5] the band has described itself as "all English" in interviews[6] and band members such as Jem Finer and Philip Chevron, once the band's only Irish-born member, objected[7] to the "Irish" label to describe the band;[8][9] James Fearnley refers to the band as "for the most part English".[10] The band has faced accusations of cultural appropriation or insensitivity as an English band playing traditionally Irish music.[11][12][13][14][15] With the departure of Shane MacGowan in 1996, Darryl Hunt explained that, with the loss of the band's only founding member with Irish heritage, the Pogues "respected [...] everybody's culture" and took "energy and ideas" from Irish music as well as elsewhere.[16]"
And this from notes on their Wikipedia page. This is the band talking about themselves. Even their only Irish born member considered the Pogues to be English not Irish. Note also the description of McGowan as having Irish heritage, rather than being Irish.
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"While often labelled as variously "Anglo-Irish", "Hiberno-English" or simply "Irish", amongst others,[1][2][3][4][5] the band has described itself as "all English" in interviews[6] and band members such as Jem Finer and Philip Chevron, once the band's only Irish-born member, objected[7] to the "Irish" label to describe the band;[8][9] James Fearnley refers to the band as "for the most part English".[10] The band has faced accusations of cultural appropriation or insensitivity as an English band playing traditionally Irish music.[11][12][13][14][15] With the departure of Shane MacGowan in 1996, Darryl Hunt explained that, with the loss of the band's only founding member with Irish heritage, the Pogues "respected [...] everybody's culture" and took "energy and ideas" from Irish music as well as elsewhere.[16]"
And this from notes on their Wikipedia page. This is the band talking about themselves. Even their only Irish born member considered the Pogues to be English not Irish. Note also the description of McGowan as having Irish heritage, rather than being Irish.
I think we're talking about MacGowan here?
This is an obituary covering the details you've raised.
https://www.irishtimes.com/obituaries/2023/11/30/shane-macgowan-obituary-rank-outsider-who-became-one-of-irelands-most-feted-sons/
In it I would highlight this
'In January 2018, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by National Concert Hall patron and President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins'
And suggest that Michael D Higgins may be more relevant than you.
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Well I was only quoting you 'But we aren't all entitled to our own facts', so if you disagree with yourself, feel free to give yourself a damn good thrashing.
You do understand the difference between opinions - e.g:
'In a statement, Mr Higgins said MacGowan would be remembered “as one of music’s greatest lyricists”.' or
'Shane MacGowan and chums may drape themselves in the tricolour, but their supposed "Irishness" is a mish-mash of hairy, outmoded cliches, many of which they seem actively interested in perpetuating.'
And facts - e.g.:
MacGowan was born in Kent
MacGowan's upbringing was almost exclusively in England (except a couple of years)
MacGowan went to school at the fee paying Homewood House prep school until the age of 14 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmewood_House_School)
MacGowan then attended the top English Public School Westminster School (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_School) but was expelled at the age of 16
The Pogues were formed in London (err in England) and of the founding members none were born in Ireland and only MacGowan had Irish heritage.
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Ooh look a statement from the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media in the Irish govt
https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/7acf1-statement-by-catherine-martin-td-on-the-passing-of-shane-macgowan/
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You do understand the difference between opinions - e.g:
'In a statement, Mr Higgins said MacGowan would be remembered “as one of music’s greatest lyricists”.' or
'Shane MacGowan and chums may drape themselves in the tricolour, but their supposed "Irishness" is a mish-mash of hairy, outmoded cliches, many of which they seem actively interested in perpetuating.'
And facts - e.g.:
MacGowan was born in Kent
MacGowan's upbringing was almost exclusively in England (except a couple of years)
MacGowan went to school at the fee paying Homewood House prep school until the age of 14 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmewood_House_School)
MacGowan then attended the top English Public School Westminster School (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_School) but was expelled at the age of 16
The Pogues were formed in London (err in England) and of the founding members none were born in Ireland and only MacGowan had Irish heritage.
'Leading the tributes was President Michael D. Higgins, who said in a statement: "Like so many across the world, it was with the greatest sadness that I learned this morning of the death of Shane MacGowan.
"Shane will be remembered as one of music's greatest lyricists. So many of his songs would be perfectly crafted poems, if that would not have deprived us of the opportunity to hear him sing them."
He continued: "The genius of Shane's contribution includes the fact that his songs capture within them, as Shane would put it, the measure of our dreams - of so many worlds, and particularly those of love, of the emigrant experience and of facing the challenges of that experience with authenticity and courage, and of living and seeing the sides of life that so many turn away from."
He said that MacGowan's words "connected Irish people all over the globe to their culture and history" and encompassed "so many human emotions in the most poetic of ways."
President Higgins added: "Shane's talent was nurtured from a young age by his mother Therese, herself an award winning folk singer in her own right. Therese, who lost her life in such tragic circumstances on New Year’s Day 2017, inspired in Shane the love of Irish music and traditions which resulted in the wonderful music and lyrics which have been a source of such joy for so many people.'
https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2023/1130/1419363-president-higgins-leads-tributes-to-shane-macgowan/
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Ooh look a statement from the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media in the Irish govt
https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/7acf1-statement-by-catherine-martin-td-on-the-passing-of-shane-macgowan/
More opinions I note. Any facts to add there.
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More opinions I note. Any facts to add there.
The fact that it is an official statement of the Irish Govt.
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The fact that it is an official statement of the Irish Govt.
Which contains opinions, which are the relevant things here. You do seem terribly confused between fact and opinion.
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Which contains opinions, which are the relevant things here. You do seem terribly confused between fact and opinion.
And that you think that your opinion is of equivalent weight to Irish govt about Irishness is the best Irish joke for some time.
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And suggest that Michael D Higgins may be more relevant than you.
But not more relevant that his own band members who considered the Pogues to be English and that MacGowan had Irish heritage, rather than being Irish.
But hey, ho - what do they know - they were only the people who formed the Pogues with MacGowan and created the music that some others seem to be of the opinion 'revitalised Irish traditional music'. But of course other opinions are available, such as the ones written at a time when people didn't think they needed to be terribly polite in public about MacGowan in the days after his death.
Bit sad actually if Irish traditional music needed a bunch of people born in Kent, Eastbourne, Stoke, Dorset, Ladbroke Grove and ... err ... Nigeria to revitalise it. Nonsense, of course, as irish traditional music was alive and well in the 80s and didn't need the Pogues to revitalise it at all. In fact the irony is that had it not been for performing with the Dubliners I doubt the Pogues would have made any inroads into Ireland at all.
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And that you think that your opinion is of equivalent weight to Irish govt about Irishness is the best Irish joke for some time.
I think I'd value the opinion of founding members of the Pogues, along with MacGowan as to whether they were Irish or English to carry far more weight on the discussion which was about whether the Pogues and MacGowan were authentically Irish than the Irish government. Don't you. You know Finer and Fearnley were actually there at the time - I doubt very much that Catherine Martin was.
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I think I'd value the opinion of founding members of the Pogues, along with MacGowan as to whether they were Irish or English to carry far more weight on the discussion which was about whether the Pogues and MacGowan were authentically Irish than the Irish government. Don't you. You know Finer and Fearnley were actually there at the time - I doubt very much that Catherine Martin was.
Again we, and the Irish govt minister are talkung about MacGowan. You seem to imply that MacGowan thoughr he wasn't Irish. Can you provide evidence for that?
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I'm just following the Irish tradition of songwriting, the Irish way of life, the human way of life. Cram as much pleasure into life, and rail against the pain you have to suffer as a result. Or scream and rant with the pain, and wait for it to be taken away with beautiful pleasure . . .
Shane MacGowan
Irish music is guts, balls and feet music, yeah? It’s frenetic dance music, yeah? Or it’s impossibly sad like slow music, yeah? Yeah? And it also handles all sorts of subjects, from rebel songs to comical songs about sex, you know what I mean, yeah? Which I don’t think people realize how much innuendo there is in Irish music.
Shane MacGowan
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Here's his sister talking about him
https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/hes-recognised-as-a-son-of-ireland-thats-what-he-wanted-shane-macgowans-sister-pays-emotional-tribute/ar-AA1kQmdN
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https://theconversation.com/shane-macgowan-a-timeless-voice-for-irelands-diaspora-in-england-197491
He assuaged his homesickness by attending Irish social clubs and regularly visiting Ireland.
“Because there’s an Irish scene in London,” MacGowan later explained, “you never forget the fact that you originally came from Ireland. There are lots of Irish pubs, so there was always Irish music in bars and on jukeboxes. Then every summer I would spend my school holidays back in Tipperary.”
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I'm just following the Irish tradition of songwriting, the Irish way of life, the human way of life. Cram as much pleasure into life, and rail against the pain you have to suffer as a result. Or scream and rant with the pain, and wait for it to be taken away with beautiful pleasure . . .
Shane MacGowan
Irish music is guts, balls and feet music, yeah? It’s frenetic dance music, yeah? Or it’s impossibly sad like slow music, yeah? Yeah? And it also handles all sorts of subjects, from rebel songs to comical songs about sex, you know what I mean, yeah? Which I don’t think people realize how much innuendo there is in Irish music.
Shane MacGowan
And before he'd changed his accent and created this carefully narrative of being Oirish. From 1987.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQNNjvBoWQY
'I see things as a Londoner.'
Not really much evidence of this massive Irishness here, despite being interviewed by an Irish interviewer for an Irish tv show on the topic of his Irishness. Sounds to me like a Londoner of Irish heritage - seems all the band-mates, including MacGown were of a similar opinion at the time when they were actually making the music.
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You seem to imply that MacGowan thoughr he wasn't Irish. Can you provide evidence for that?
'I see things as a Londoner' - Shane MacGowan 1987.
Sure later in his life (frankly after he stopped making any music of note) he created this great Irish narrative, changed his accent etc - but it really wasn't there when he and his fellow English born musicians in the Pogues were actually making the music which they (note they, it wasn't just MacGowan who created the music) are famous for.
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'I see things as a Londoner' - Shane MacGowan 1987.
Sure later in his life (frankly after he stopped making any music of note) he created this great Irish narrative, changed his accent etc - but it really wasn't there when he and his fellow English born musicians in the Pogues were actually making the music which they (note they, it wasn't just MacGowan who created the music) are famous for.
You do realise that doesn't imply that he didn't think of himself as Irish? And again we're talking about MacGowan.
I take it you think the Duke of Wellington was Irish?
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Come to think of it, it may be the thread on here that first alerted me to the Bowdlerised version.
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Of course while Prof D and I have been whiffling on about whether Shane MacGowan should be seen as Irish, we have missed that he is the Irish Christ or something.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid026YtNULZQCccbdYiM7Jpwrpo9UgACx9ZwTNBaTsX9pL9oUmwS7pij2YyWL4XGUodsl&id=659246191&mibextid=WC7FNe
Copied from link for those without FB access
'I woke up in the early morning to the news about Shane, and immediately thought, for some reason, about the way he spoke of his childhood years in Tipperary, where his extended family lived in a small cottage without running water that doubled as an IRA safe house.
Here in rural Ireland young Shane lived in an atmosphere of myth and magic, faerie and saints, rosaries and revolution, beer and whiskey, profanity, prayers and intense familial love. He was drinking beer, betting on horses, and praying to the angels and saints at five years old - that is when he wasn't romping around in the muddy fields or the deep green woods. He spoke of these times with an aching, tender longing.
When he won a literary scholarship and left to live permanently in England, the sense of dislocation was intense. To hear him tell, it was as though he had left a tribal society with deep roots and traditions to be thrust into an alien, industrial hell, faceless and without love. Then of course there was the explicit anti-Irish racism of the time. The end result was a total breakdown, institutionalization, tranquilizers and electric shock therapy. I guess they might have thought he was just another crazy Paddy who would slip between the cracks and never be heard from again. They were wrong and what rose up would spit in their faces and overtake them with its ferocious and unyielding beauty.
The Pogues were his answer to this dislocation, a cry of rage and pride, an assertion of worth and a visionary mission. By taking Irish music into the nascent punk movement, he was both a preservationist and a radical innovator. But it wouldn't have meant so much without his songwriting. At one point there was a website that annotated his lyrics, so rife are they with allusions to Lorca and Genet, Irish revolutionary politics and ancient Celtic myth, pop culture, history and geography. Shane was a literary genius, and those who paid attention knew. But most of all his songs had heart, and a longing - a longing in the deep heart's core. I feel perhaps it was a longing for home, a home that in some ways no longer existed.
You'll hear a lot of talk in the press about the drinking and drugs. Fair enough. He did a lot of both. But honestly you can walk into any dive bar worth its salt and find some old man who has been relentlessly abusing himself for fifty years. It's not really anything to talk about - unless he's also written some of the greatest songs of all time.
These days, everything is medicalized. And of course Shane was an addict and alcoholic. But he always claimed that derangement of the senses was his path to creative inspiration and frankly it's bullshit to say that never works. It does however have a price and I mourn that his final couple of decades seem to have been bereft of songs. He burned hard and bright until there didn't seem to be much left to burn. That was his choice. His final years seem to have been spent in a wheelchair watching television. Occasionally Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen would stop by to meet their hero.
But I can't complain about what he left us. We weren't entitled to any of it: he gave it freely.
He gave it as a poet, a singer, a bard.
A shaman, an exorcist, a druid.
A rebel, a lover, a scholar.
An Irishman.
Before Rome's disastrous intervention and Britain's colonization, there was an Irish Christianity that grew organically in Ireland and had pagan roots. The Christ of this tradition was different from the Christ of Europe. He was a Druidic Christ who rode the winds, who howled with the wolves in the wildwood, who spoke with spirits by secret brooks - and also a Christ of the hearth, the fire, the mug of ale shared between friends. He was a holy trickster, a magician, a storyteller, and God.
It's this Christ I like to imagine welcoming Ireland's greatest son home tonight, to a heaven that looks a lot like Tipperary.'
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You do realise that doesn't imply that he didn't think of himself as Irish?
Sure - but it would be a bit odd in an interview for an Irish programme, when being interviewed by an Irish interviewer who is asking about the importance of his Irish-ness to fail to talk about the importance of his Irish-ness, if it was important.
But that is exactly what he does - he effectively dismisses his Irishness beyond matter of factness (e.g. that some of the first music he heard was Irish) - his entire passion in the interview is in talking about London as a melting pot where you can immerse yourself in all sorts of cultures.
But then, in his own words he sees things as a Londoner.
And again we're talking about MacGowan.
What does that mean? Surely the best way to understand the importance of Irish-ness to MacGowan would be to ask him specifically about it. That's what the interviewer did - and certainly in 1987 (when MacGowan was at his most creative) he considers himself foremost a Londoner, not Irish. Which would, of course make sense as by that point pretty well all the life he would have remembered was spent in London hinterland (Kent, Sussex), or London itself.
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To expand on my dislike of this song it does come down to that one lyric (although in general, I don't like Christmas songs so there is that as well):
"You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot"
Accusations of snowflakery are bound to fly my way I am sure, but when that particular slur has been used in physical and verbal abuse against you as has happened to me in the past, then it is not that easy to just shrug it off as a lyric.
I would ask that if you find the above lyric acceptable, then the below amended one is also acceptable:
"You scumbag, you runt
You cheap lousy cunt"
If you don't think this is acceptable then you are showing some incredible double standards.
I'm not suggesting banning it or changing it, I'm just saying that it is not quite as easy as saying it's only words by a character in a song.
It was first released in when the mid 80's? A time when homophobia was rife and violence was a very real possibility against gay people. The tone in which it is sung and the times it was released in make it problematic for me.
Incidentally, I find the use of the word "queer" equally problematic and do not like the fact that it has been added to the alpabetti spaghetti of LGB etc.
And before some bright spark decides to lecture me on "reclaiming language" there is some language I would rather not reclaim.
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I'd find the changed lyric you suggest acceptable. Though it would never have been played on the radio, not because of any motivation of it being sexist but because of other weird reasoning. And let's remember the song already includes 'old slut on junk'.
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To expand on my dislike of this song it does come down to that one lyric (although in general, I don't like Christmas songs so there is that as well):
"You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot"
Accusations of snowflakery are bound to fly my way I am sure, but when that particular slur has been used in physical and verbal abuse against you as has happened to me in the past, then it is not that easy to just shrug it off as a lyric.
I would ask that if you find the above lyric acceptable, then the below amended one is also acceptable:
"You scumbag, you runt
You cheap lousy cunt"
If you don't think this is acceptable then you are showing some incredible double standards.
I'm not suggesting banning it or changing it, I'm just saying that it is not quite as easy as saying it's only words by a character in a song.
It was first released in when the mid 80's? A time when homophobia was rife and violence was a very real possibility against gay people. The tone in which it is sung and the times it was released in make it problematic for me.
Incidentally, I find the use of the word "queer" equally problematic and do not like the fact that it has been added to the alpabetti spaghetti of LGB etc.
And before some bright spark decides to lecture me on "reclaiming language" there is some language I would rather not reclaim.
We are in different times now and while 'faggot' seemed acceptable in the 80s, it wouldn't be now.
But actually I'm a bit confused by the words anyway as they don't really seem right. The song is about a heterosexual couple throwing insults at each other. So the man describing the woman as a 'slut' seems plausible, but the woman calling the man a 'faggot' seems a bit perplexing.
The other thing I wonder is how much input Kirsty McColl had in the lyrics she sang. We certainly know that her and MacGowan sang their bits at different times in different studios so perfectly possible that McColl might have made some changes herself. And don't forget that she came from genuine folk songwriting 'royalty' so I image she knew a thing or two about songwriting and lyric writing.
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Joseph O'Connor on MacGowan
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67581647
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Interesting interview with his wife on radio 4 yesterday morning. In it she described his deep affection for the royals, including crying when Prince Phillip died. Plus that he was an avid reader of the Daily Telegraph - the sort of thing you'd expect more from a privately educated member of the English middle classes than an Irish radical mystic. But hey, ho one side for his public image, another in private.
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We are in different times now and while 'faggot' seemed acceptable in the 80s, it wouldn't be now.
I wasn't aware it was acceptable. Thank you for clarifying the matter for me.
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I wasn't aware it was acceptable. Thank you for clarifying the matter for me.
I never said it ‘was acceptable’ I said it ‘seemed acceptable’ in the 80s. Those are different things.
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I'm confused.
"Seemed acceptable"
"it wouldn't be now".
Not sure what you are saying.
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I never said it ‘was acceptable’ I said it ‘seemed acceptable’ in the 80s. Those are different things.
It's not meant to be acceptable, it's meant to be an insult.
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I'm confused.
"Seemed acceptable"
"it wouldn't be now".
Not sure what you are saying.
Apologies if I wasn't being clear.
What I am saying was that in the 80s the word 'faggot' was pretty commonplace as an insult and therefore seemed to be an acceptable word to use in that context within general society. That has shifted now - the word is now considered much less acceptable than it once was, largely because we are much more attuned to homophobia as a society than we were 40 years ago.
Hence why when the song was first released there was very little comment about the use of the word and certainly I don't remember any clamour to ban the song due to the presence of that word in the lyrics. However more recently that has changed with a more general view that the word isn't acceptable, leading to calls for the song to be either banned or the lyric altered.
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But actually I'm a bit confused by the words anyway as they don't really seem right. The song is about a heterosexual couple throwing insults at each other. So the man describing the woman as a 'slut' seems plausible, but the woman calling the man a 'faggot' seems a bit perplexing.
My memory of the 1980's is that people often thought that accusing other people of being gay was an insult.
The reality is more likely that "maggot" is a good insult and McGowan was looking for something to rhyme with it.
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It's not meant to be acceptable, it's meant to be an insult.
There are words that within a society at a particular time are considered acceptable and/or unacceptable to use as insults. And that shifts with time - in the 70s the use of racial insults using the N word and the P word were commonplace and therefore considered 'acceptable' to the society of that time. Things have changed and those terms are now considered deeply unacceptable even as insults as they are considered deeply racist.
In his lyrics I think MacGowan was choosing from the lexicon of broadly 'accepted' insults with 1980s UK society. I don't think his intention was to shock by using words beyond that 80s acceptable set of insult words. Interestingly some offensive words have gone the other was, being more accepted now as insults than previously - I think the most obvious being the C-word.
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My memory of the 1980's is that people often thought that accusing other people of being gay was an insult.
True - but that doesn't really work in the context of a couple where the man is clearly not gay. It doesn't work now (although it wouldn't be considered an insult in the manner it was in the 80s) but it didn't really work then either.
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What I am saying was that in the 80s the word 'faggot' was pretty commonplace as an insult and therefore seemed to be an acceptable word to use in that context within general society.
As I said before, I am not a huge fan of Christmas songs but I do clearly remember when I first became aware of this song which was in a city centre pub in Nottingham when the drunk, mainly men sang along in glee with this tune, giving particular emphasis to that section of the song. Not with any great understanding of the lyrics, just a joy at being allowed to use language of that sort, that may, or may not, have expressed some deeper feelings on their part. That the word may have been "acceptable" in parts of society doesn't negate my feelings about the use of the word, and the feelings of many others who have had that word used against them. For a song to be as good a song as you seem to be arguing it is, it would not provoke such feelings in an at that time marginalised group.
I agree with Jeremyp here, he was looking for a rhyme either for maggot or faggot and this is what we got.
As you point out it doesn't work in the context of the song and signifies a bit of lazy lyric writing at the least and at worst an unthinking attitude toward certain groups in society.
Either way, they are not signifiers of a great or even a good song.
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I agree with Jeremyp here, he was looking for a rhyme either for maggot or faggot and this is what we got.
As you point out it doesn't work in the context of the song and signifies a bit of lazy lyric writing at the least and at worst an unthinking attitude toward certain groups in society.
Either way, they are not signifiers of a great or even a good song.
Leaving aside, the merits of the song, I disagree about the term 'faggot' working in context. In terms of a broken relationship, a woman using any number of terms to imply that the man is not a 'real' man has a llot onger history than Fairytale of New York.
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That the word may have been "acceptable" in parts of society doesn't negate my feelings about the use of the word, and the feelings of many others who have had that word used against them.
But isn't that exactly the point.
There are plenty of words that at one time were deemed acceptable by broader society, yet were deeply offensive to a minority. Offensive words with homophobic or racial impact fall into that category. Over time we have seen a shift in general acceptability on the basis that broader society has come to recognise the offensive nature of those words to minority groups and, in some cases, deemed them no longer acceptable.
For a song to be as good a song as you seem to be arguing it is, it would not provoke such feelings in an at that time marginalised group.
A fair point and this is why there is a debate about whether the song should be banned or the offensive word altered. But actually I'm not much of a one for lyrics generally - it is always the music that does it (or doesn't do it) for me. And in this case the lyrics are certainly not the thing about the song that I like. For me it is the music which makes it for me - the music which was written not by MacGowan but by Jem Finer.
But the thing about Christmas songs is that there evoke time and place in a very specific way about a particular time of year. So they don't actually need to be 'good' songs to do that, what they need to do is to press those memory buttons.
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I agree with Jeremyp here, he was looking for a rhyme either for maggot or faggot and this is what we got.
As you point out it doesn't work in the context of the song and signifies a bit of lazy lyric writing at the least and at worst an unthinking attitude toward certain groups in society.
Agree on both counts - as an insult for a heterosexual man it seem no more appropriate that describing him as a slut or a whore. Some insults are universal - others only really work for sub-sets of society.
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Agree on both counts - as an insult for a heterosexual man it seem no more appropriate that describing him as a slut or a whore. Some insults are universal - others only really work for sub-sets of society.
Not really sure what you mean by 'work' here. Let's take a different slur 'spaz'. It was used in my memory almost consistently for people who did not belong to the 'sub-set' of society to which it was a slur.
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True - but that doesn't really work in the context of a couple where the man is clearly not gay.
Yes it does - or it did back then.
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Yes it does - or it did back then.
Not sure it does.
Remember the context here is a woman throwing insults at her male lover at the point when they were breaking up. While there are plenty of insults that seem quite likely there are a few that seem rather more unlikely - bitch or slut or whore spring to mind - faggot would sit in that category.
But you are probably correct that MacGowan chose faggot simply because it rhymed with maggot rather than because it would be a likely insult in that context. Likewise 'punk' (hardly a particularly potent insult), but good to rhyme with junk.