I was forcibly reminded of this the other day when my wife came home with the special re issue of the seminal Pogues album Rum, Sodomy & the Lash the other day. Originally released in 1985, the good people at Warner Music re-released it last year with six additional cuts obviously never released before.
When Rum, Sodomy & the Lash was first released it stood the world of Irish folk music firmly on its ear. Even though the boys were using primarily the same old traditional instruments, boron, tin whistle, etc, they imparted a particular punk like sensibility to their tunes that left some blowing bubbles in their Guinness. (If you've ever had Guinness you'll know how hard that is)
It wasn't just the way they played their instruments, hard and fast, which got up the traditionalist's noses, and they could probably have lived with Shane MacGowan's snarling voice and curled lip attitude; the subject matter of their originals was another matter all together. There was no glorification of rebels or Ireland, but songs about rent boys, drugs, and the horrors of war.
"And now I am lying here, I've had too much booze/ I've been shat on and spat on and raped and abused/I know that I am dying and I wish I could beg/For some money to take me from the old main drag" The Pogues: "The Old Main Drag", Rum Sodomy & the Lash 1985.
Yes, well welcome to the real world and all everybody. Ireland's history didn't end in 1926. This is the new world of heroin, hookers and poverty. Not what you want to hear being sung over the uillean pipe and banjo; could put you off your Guinness and chips. Then when the same boyos, and that lassie, wind up and take a run at "Jessie James", it's so hard and fast you don't know when and if you'll ever breath again. Well that just doesn't sit right with some people.
Which could explain why you're not going to hear very much from the Pogues at any one of those eighties revival meetings where they stand around and worship at the altar of Adam Ant and Rich Ashely. They didn't have hair that could be flipped back out of their eyes while they doodled cool notes on a keyboard and sang in plumy English boarding school accents about wanting me baby or if you really meant to hurt me.
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