No, getting the dirt from the back alleys of Belfast and Dublin tossed in your teeth isn't going to make you sentimental for something you never lived through in the first place and probably wouldn't sell much beer to the university crowd anyway. Snarling drunk Irish poets tend to frighten suburban North Americans who have been raised on the white bread of Brittany, Brandy, and Backstreet Boys.
Rum, Sodomy & the Lash (the title was take from a Winston Churchill quote: "Don't talk to me about naval tradition, it's all rum, sodomy and the lash") was the Pogues second album, but it was the one that took them beyond bar band status. For starters it was produced by Elvis Costello, who had taken a real shine to the band, and that gave them instant press credibility and attention.
"I saw my task was to capture them in their dilapidated glory before some more professional producer fucked them up" Elvis Costello
That he did. They shine through like rough diamonds on this disc, unfinished but radiant in their strength and power. Not the polished ring you’d give to your sweetheart maybe, but definitely the drill bit you'd use to carve a lasting impression in stone.
For an album that's awash with songs about death, there is something powerfully life affirming about the Pogues' Rum Sodomy & the Lash. The fact that they can perform songs like "The Band Played Waltz Matilda", and "A Pair of Brown Eyes", which both feature not too pleasant reminders of the reality of war, with passion is what offsets the morbidity of the subject matter. Nobody who cares that much looks like they're about to give up the ghost.
So if you're like me and were actually of drinking age during the eighties, and you're in need of a serious antidote to the schlock of nostalgia nights, Rum, Sodomy & the Lash from the Pogues is just the thing to get you back on your feet. For those who don't know any better, and think that Boy George was the epitome of eighties rock, please listen to the Pogues, and maybe you won't think us such wankers after all.
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