Episode #211 |12.10.24
Shane MacGowan: Outsiders, Underdogs, and Christmas Eve in the Drunk Tank
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In this episode
Shane MacGowan lived his life as an outsider. He was an Irishman living in England, a troublemaking jug-eared punk with rotten teeth and a voracious appetite for drugs and alcohol. And with his band, The Pogues, he created a powerful synthesis of the traditional music of his homeland and a modern punk attitude. It was this gift for melding the sacred with the profane that led to the creation of one of the finest and most unique Christmas songs ever: "Fairytale of New York."
Sources
A Furious Devotion: The Life of Shane MacGowan, by Richard Balls
Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan (2020, dir. Julien Temple)
Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello, by Graeme Thompson
Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, by Elvis Costello
He might be a drunk and a bum but he still has that most precious of musical things - a unique and special legacy (The Guardian)
Shane MacGowan and the Stories We Leave Behind (Paste)
Pogues Frontman Shane MacGowan Left Behind over $10K for Funeral Bar Tab (People)
The Pogues: 'We expected censure from the beginning' (The Guardian)
In 1984, Margaret Thatcher was nearly assassinated — a new book asks, what if? (NPR)
How the I.R.A. Almost Blew Up the British Government (New Yorker)
I sold drugs linked to notorious Kray crime family at school, Pogues icon Shane MacGowan says (The Irish Sun)
Fairytale of New York: the story behind the Pogues' classic Christmas anthem (The Guardian)
How a 1987 Christmas album changed the way the holiday sounds (Washington Post)
Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Credits
Hosted by Jake Brennan.
Written by Zeth Lundy.
Copy edited by James Sullivan.
Scored and mixed by Matt Beaudoin.
Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spraker.
Disgraceland theme song, "Crenshaw Space Boogie" written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak