I remember, back in the eighties, my Uncle, whom I lived with for a while, bursting into the house, fresh from a trip to Ireland, and proclaiming with a gleam in his eyes "I have got something here that is gonna blow you away !" With that he strode over to the sound system, thrust in a cassette, cracked open a few beers (no fine wines in those drunken days of rebelliousness !! Hee Hee) and cranked up the sounds to full volume ! What followed opened up my senses to a whole new type of music for me......The Pogues.

How to describe them..well there's a thing...they do not fit into any existing category as far as I am concerned. Their music is a mix of traditional Irish Folk and and a type of Punk Rock synonymous with The Clash. Fronted by the infamous, drunken and exquisitely ugly 'Shane McGowan', they were signed by Stiff Records in 1984 and 'Rum Sodomy and the Lash' is their second album after 'Red Roses for me', and arguably, but as far as I am concerned, their best album.

'Rum, Sodomy and the Lash' takes it's name from the famous Churchill quote 'don't talk to me of naval tradition, it's all Rum Sodomy and the Lash !', the album cover is very distinct, it copies a famous painting 'The Raft of the Medusa' (1816) a famous shipwreck off the coast of Africa, and depicts dying naked bodies, with the members of the band's faces cleverly superimposed on some of the bodies. The album was produced by the talented Elvis Costello, and is , in my opinion, awesome.

*****THE BEST TRACKS*****

The album opens with my favourite track..THE SICK BED OF CUCHULAINN

This is a lyrical masterpiece, penned by Mcgowan himself, and he sings of the ancient Cuchulainn, who was a powerful leader from Irish mythology.He dreams of being attacked by powerful women with horsewhips and is subsequently taken ill, as a result of which he lies asleep in his sickbed for a year.

"They took you out into the street and kicked you in the brains
So you walked back in through a bolted door and did it all again
At the sick bed of Cuchulainn we'll kneel and say a prayer
And the ghosts are rattling at the door and the devil's in the chair"

This varies from a slow beat to up tempo with the traditional folk Uilean pipes and fiddle wanting you to get up and tap your feet, must be played loud for full effect , McGowans husky and coarse voice lends itself to the heady atmosphere of the track.....Brilliant.


I'M A MAN YOU DON"T MEET EVERYDAY

This is a traditional scottish song, but made their own by their unique arrangement, minimal music and , interestingly, sung in the beautifully lilting tones of their female vocalist Cait O'Riordan, who, incidentally, later left the band and married it's producer, Costello.

"Oh, my name is Jock Stewart, I'm a canny gaun man,
And a roving young fellow I've been.
So be easy and free, when you're drinking with me,
I'm a man you don't meet every day."

'Gaun' is scots gaelic for 'going' and 'canny' means 'warily!.Beautifully sung and in contrast to the rest of the album, slow tempo.


A PAIR OF BROWN EYES

Another self penned masterpiece from McGowan and he sings this in a somewhat ...err.....sentimental way. In it he sings about a drunken old man, who's life is ruled by the evil drink. He reminisces about the war and how his body was broken in battle, coming back from the war, broken bones and all, his woman wasn't waiting at the quay having run off and left him for another man...He always remembers her brown eyes.

"But when we got back
Labelled parts one to three
There was no pair of brown eyes
Waiting for me.
And a rovin' a rovin' a rovin' I'll go
For a pair of brown eyes."

Overall, sentimental yet catchy and melodic.

SALLY MACLENNANE

Again, penned by himself, McGowan sings of being a barman in a pub and of drunken revelry (something of which I am unashamedly an.expert.....though in many years past, or in McGowan's words 'Times long gone'). He refers to the Elephant man in the song, this is believed to be in regard to a real person , a huge bloke, who used to drink in Shane's uncle's pub in Dagenham. This guy was extremely argumentative after a drink and subsequently broke his neck after one particularly raucous incident. He was nicknamed 'Elephant Man' because of the cast he had to wear for months as a result!! Nice.

"I played the pump and took the hump
And watered whiskey down
I talked of whores and horses
To the men who drank the brown
I heard them say that Jimmy's
Making money far away
Some people left for heaven without warning"

Full of lively 'fiddling' and those, Oh so melodic pipes, in an Irish 'Jiggy' type way, this will make you want to get up and dance, well it does me anyway !

JESSE JAMES

This is a traditional song although it has been adapted somwhat, lyrically, to match the pogues' own inimitable style..Telling the familiar story of the death of Jesse James, killed at the hands of the Ford brothers, cousins of the james'.Gowans's rough hewn huskiness again makes this song his own !

"Poor jesse had a wife
To mourn for his life,
Three children,
They were brave;
But that dirty little coward
That shot mr. howard
Has laid poor jesse in his grave."

Again, executed in a very punchy and catchy style, another foot tapper.

Full track listing ( The remastered versiion includes bonus tracks as listed)

1. Sick Bed of Cuchulainn
2. Old Main Drag
3. Wild Cats of Kilkenny
4. I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day
5. Pair of Brown Eyes
6. Sally Maclennane
7. Pistol for Paddy Garcia
8. Dirty Old Town
9. Jesse James
10. Navigator
11. Billy's Bones
12. Gentleman Soldier
13. Band Played Waltzing Matilda
14. A Pistol For Paddy Garcia (Bonus Track)
15. London Girl (Bonus Track)
16. Rainy Night In Soho (Bonus Track)
17. Body Of An American (Bonus Track)
18. Planxty Noel Hill (Bonus Track)
19. The Parting Glass (Bonus Track)

Overall I think this album is fantastic.The Pogues sing of drunkeness, prostitution, hopeless despair and death but not in a depressing way, this is surprisingly upbeat given the subject matter and thoroughly enjoyable,the lyrics are amazing and truly thought provoking. I wouldn't skip any of the tracks because they are all exceptionally performed. If you are thinking of buying a Pogues album, make sure it is this one and you will not be disappointed.
Available from Amazon 10.99GBP new or 3.99 GBP used, or from E Bay at prices starting from 1.00 GBP
An album definitely NOT for the fainthearted.

Pogues, Rum Sodomy and the Lash - The Pogues have always been an odd band to pigeonhole, punks with folk instuments, folkies with a punk attitude, barroom boozers, who knows, but thats really not the point. The point is that the Pogues kick out a great range of Irish folk with an attitude and stance that takes no prisoners. Even though they share some common ground with more traditional celtic folk bands such as the Dubliners and the Chieftans, they also are not a million miles away from bands such as the Clash or the Sex Pistols.

The title of the album comes from a quote from Churchill, "Don't talk to me of naval tradition, it's all rum, sodomy and the lash," and the cover art work is an adaption of a naval painting from 1819 called the Raft of Medusa, with the band's faces superimposed in the relevant places. This was the second album for the band, and followed a full calendar of playing every toilet and folk club in London, fusing punk, folk, traditional reworks and original tunes at a time when being Irish and a folk band were the two most unfasionable things to be. They did it anyway.

Sick Bed of Cuchulainn opens preceedings in typicaly Irish fashion. Cuchulainn was the greatest of Irish ancient heroes, who, according to legend and in poem also, lay ill in bed for a year after being attacked in a dream. The Pogues version of this theme is littered with reference to a whole range of other Irish notaries. After an almost pub-singer style introduction, the band pile in behind the whiskey-cracked voice and carry you away in a drunken ceildah of sound. Mandolins sing, accordians scream and a pounding bass keeps the beat, and by the time the hook line comes in for the second time you will be spinning around the room. If not open that bottle of whiskey left over from last Christmas and put it to good use. John McCormack and Richard Tauber are named dropped as is Frank Ryan, as does the mythical bandit Billy in The Bowl, all meaningless except to those with a knowledge of Irish culture, but the names seem almost magical and add to the anthemic quality of the song.

The Old Main Drag is a slow banjo and accordian-led waltz, berating the downward spiral of drugs and prostitution in the back streets of the big city. Amongst this dark tale is a small autobiographical set of lines about how singer Shane MacGowan was given a beating by the police at Vine Street police station.

A scream opens up Wild Cats of Kilkenny, a full-on, folk jig instrumental, heavy on the bass and drums until it builds the whistle takes command. The title is again from Irish history, but I wont go into that one as this is beginning to turn into a history lesson as it is.

Bass player Cait O`Riordan takes the vocals on the traditional song, I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day. With minimal musical arragement to detract from her gorgeous voice, it carries the tune, of Scottish derivation by the way, beautifully.

The full band are back in on A Pair of Brown Eyes, a real pub sing along, you can smell the Guinness. The song is about drunken barroom reminiscences of the girl who has just left you, again littered with references to Irish singers and stars.

The most famous song of the album follows. Sally MacLennane is more barroom nonsense, and I defy you to keep still to this. The beat is infectious, the whistle plays the part of lead guitar, the accordian the rythymn. By contrast the slow and dark tones build like a spaghetti western on a Pistol for Paddy Garcia, the whistling in the background very "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly." If Clint Eastwood had been Irish then the man with no name would have ridden into town to this tune.

Dirty Old Town is a cover of Ewan MacColl's tune, him being the father of Kirsty who joined the Pogues for their most famous song, Fairy Tale of New York, and the town of the title is actually Salford, where MacColl was born. The guitar and harmonica play a wistful and sorrowful tune as MacGowan launches into tales of romance in the poor and grim back streets of an industrial metropolis. Again a slow ballad but with a thumping beat and a hook line that gets you moving.

Jesse James is another traditional jig, whistle-fronted about the famous western gang. Slide guitar helps lend a country feel to the song. Navigator is a dedication to the Irish work gangs that sought work in England building the canals and railways. The banjo begins this slow waltz and the band back it up with subtle harmonies, the accordian running through all the available gaps in the song.

Billy's Bones is about an Irish Man serving in the middle east, a fast punk-folk rant all rockabily drum shuffle and whistle lead parts playing along to the vocal harmony. More soldier songs in the form of the Gentleman Soldier, which combines a hand fully of familiar military melodies and the funniest female vocal impression from MacGowan.

The finale is Eric Bogle's much covered And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, the ballad of an Australian soldier who survives the horrors of Galipoli in the First World War, and the album is worth buying just for this. Mainly banjo and voice for the first half of the song, but the words are so poignant that you could get away without having any music at all. The tune Waltzing Matilda is the Australians' equivalant of the Irish Danny Boy and the chorus of this song is a constant reference to it. The song builds to a become an almost military march before merging into the aformentioned Waltzing Matilda for the play out of the song.

The album is not about power, many of the songs have a minimum of kick, but creates its dynamic from a magical weave of instruments and knowing how to orchestrate songs. There are some faster numbers but this is not about speed either but it does have attitude and it is full of great tunes. It is probably a bit non-traditional for the folk purists, not fast enough for the punks and not punchy enough for the rockers, but as I said in the opening, they are not easy to categorise, oh just buy the album.