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POGUE MAHONE MEANS KISS MY ARSE - PART 2

An Interview With Shane MacGowan

INTERVIEW BY ANDY CAPPER

So Ireland is in a good place now, in your opinion.

Look, when you get to the point where people are complaining about the price of a pint you know that you’re out of the real shit, yeah?

How much is a pint here anyway?

I couldn’t tell you. Thirty years ago I could have told you what a pint cost. It was about ten pence.

When the British were in Ireland, what were the darkest times?

Things like Bloody Sunday and when they were bringing in the SAS. Know what I mean? It wasn’t looking good.

And now in Belfast, the ex-loyalist paramilitaries are entrenched in criminal activity because there’s nothing else for them to do.

When you’ve been in full-time active service for years and then suddenly it’s done, you’ve got to do something, right? Whenever there’s change in society there’s criminality, you know what I mean? The English had their highwaymen. They would rob from everybody.

NICK CAVE PORTRAIT During our time in Shane’s kitchen, we mentioned that the following day we were going to see Nick Cave play with Spiritualized in London. Knowing that the two were old friends, we asked Shane if he had a message for Nick. He made this drawing for us to pass along. We still haven’t given Nick the drawing because we kind of want to frame it and keep it. Vice: When did you become friends with Nick Cave? Shane MacGowan: It was at Filthy McNasty’s for an NME thing with him and Mark E. Smith. We were all talking. I thought Mark E. Smith was an idiot. He’s not very nice. He was going on about the IRA and he didn’t know what he was talking about.

Is there a time during the Troubles that you remember fondly?

There was a ceasefire in ’64, and then in ’66 there was a celebration of the Easter Rising, which was the rebellion attempted by the Republicans to win independence from the Brits. The celebration wasn’t in any way threatening to the English. It was just a year of people getting pissed and it started at Easter with Nelson getting his first blowjob. Know what I mean, yeah?

Right, when the IRA blew up Nelson’s Pillar. That was an unpopular monument to the British admiral Lord Nelson that was on O’Connell Street in Dublin.

Ireland is like Vietnam, right? The forces had to leave. They were flushed out of Vietnam, just like here.

Wasn’t Irish hero John F. Kennedy president of the United States when Vietnam began, though?

Yeah, but Kennedy was going to pull out. He probably would have pulled out and that’s probably why they shot him. He was sick of getting shafted by the army and the navy telling him what to do all the time. Then Bobby Kennedy was carrying it on and he got plugged before he even got time to do anything. Bobby also got shot because he was an Irish Catholic immigrant.

History hasn’t been kind to the Irish.

On the whole, history has been absolutely, stupendously stupid. But the thing is that Ireland has got faith and hope. We have that more in abundance than any other country. We live in the moment.

I guess we should talk a bit about music too. How’ve you seen the music industry change?

I remember times when I first started dealing with labels and things, there were people like Chris Blackwell at Island who were good. When I was first around there was like a huge musical and cultural revival going on. There was no generation gap really in music and now there is. And I remember MTV starting as well, and that was meant to stir things up and be good but then it just turned into Dire Straits and Van Halen and then Michael Jackson and then all the rest. You know what I mean, yeah?

Are you still making music?

Of course. But I don’t really write music. I just play and the song comes out, you know what I mean? And I still listen to the old Irish music because it’s incredibly powerful, you know?

Are there moments in your life that you don’t care to remember?

No! I remember all of it. And I liked all of it—even all the bad stuff that happened. That was all OK as well.

That’s a good way of looking at it.

It’s like evolution, yeah? I think all Darwin really proved is that some things are better looking than others. Life is like a Groucho Marx movie. It’s good to create your own world, yeah? You know what I mean? From the bad to the good, you’ve just got to live with it all. There are humans and monkeys and there are differences between some of them sometimes. But I think generally there’s not much difference really. Eeeeshshshsh.

Special thanks to Gerry O’Boyle and Lisa Moorish.


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Comments

Anonymous, on Oct 25, 2009 wrote: On your feet motherfucker

Anonymous, on Oct 25, 2009 wrote: SHAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-O!

Anonymous, on Oct 25, 2009 wrote: Shane-O!!!!!

Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote: Wow, this actually sounded like a joke: Shane McGowan being interviewed about Irish politics. Seriously, this guy is unable to hold coherent coversation anymore, let alone conduct debate on such a sensitive topic as northern irish militancy. And for that prick The Mouse on May 16 2008, grow a brainstem you ignorant cuntrag.

Anonymous, on Apr 15, 2009 wrote: Fuck Ireland and fuck Shane McGowan. Seriously, I’m Irish and I’ve lived in Ireland all my life. Hate the place; a relentless psychological nightmare of failure and alcohol dependency and brute ignorance and seedy religion. It’s like Joyce said: "Ireland is the sow that eats its young."

Anonymous, on Jan 11, 2009 wrote: Shane McGowan, talkin shite but livin the dream. If you want a real Irish hero try Brian O’Nolan. He took a hammer to all the romanticized Irish bullshit, and somehow came out of it more Irish than anything Guinness or Dev ever conjured up.

Anonymous, on Dec 5, 2008 wrote: haha what a crock of gold pish. Shane is one of the pillars of Irish marketing along with guinness, the troubles and the famine. feckless romantic eejits who dont give a fuck but are happy and enjoy a good Eeeeshshshsh.

Anonymous, on Aug 19, 2008 wrote: wow, what a load of racist wankers

Anonymous, on Jun 13, 2008 wrote: What a handsome bastard