The Irish Clash? A punk Dubliners? The fact is that The Pogues - or Pogue Mahone as they were initially known until Radio 1 had a hot flush on discovering that it was Irish for "Kiss my Arse" - were far better than both and only suffered the comparisons because the mid-80's music scene didn't know what the f**k else to make of or say about them.
To be fair though nobody had really clattered a tea tray against their head before to help keep time or tooted on the tin whistle like the devil himself had hold of their crotch in his fist. And certainly nobody had EVER written about the boozed and bruised experience of the Irish diaspora with the broken, fired-up eloquence that Shane MacGowan poured out in such large measure.
Many of the songs collected again here are now held in the same high regard as the standards which Shane grew up listening to and later covered - note the definitively crushed reading of Eric Bogle's 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'.
'A Pair of Brown Eyes', 'Rainy Night in Soho', the Christmas-isn't-Christmas 'Fairytale of New York'... the term poetic genius might now be devalued through lazy overuse but no other epithet does the crazy, bewildered bloke full justice.
The Pogues stand alongside The Smiths, New Order and The Jesus and Mary Chain as one of the truly important bands of the last 20 years but their songs will easily outlast the lot. Long after Shane's finally supped his last and tumbled off his barstool for the very last time, we'll still be boozily linking arms and shouting "you scumbag, you maggot..." in each other's faces with genuine affection. God bless you, Shane. You're not the first to have p**sed away your talent.
