Shane’s lyrics have the power to transport you to far away worlds in a manner keeping with the great Irish Poets. His lyrics deserve to be as revered as the prose and poetry of Yeats or Seamus Heaney.
And the music his band made has an everlasting legacy. The songs themselves violence and aggression in the delivery but are juxtaposed with the heartfelt sentiments of days gone by and hopes for a better day.
In the rain battered streets of Soho he crafts the most beautiful love story while other songs gives voice to the struggles of the immigrant, the downtrodden and the displaced.
At a time where Britain was not receptive to the Irish community living there, Shane and the Pogues were something the people could latch on to. Coming out of the punk movement and saying “We are here and these are our stories!”
Paul Sheridan is a singer songwriter from Glasgow and the front man with Glasgow Irish band The Wakes he performs the Shane MacGowan Songbook in the Purple Room at the Cresent Concert Hall in Drogheda on Saturday Feb 01.
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