It’s a wonder that, after all he’s been through, Shane MacGowan –– best known as the lead singer of the punk-Irish band The Pogues — is still alive.
In Julien Temple’s new documentary, the singer-songwriter is as ornery as ever, if dramatically faded from his glory days in the ‘80s.
Now 63, frail and bound to a wheelchair, (but with those famously missing teeth finally fixed), he reminisces with some reluctance about his childhood, his introduction to punk, finding global success with The Pogues, and his life since he was kicked out of his own band.
He’s not an easy subject.
At one point, he tells the interviewer to put on some music, “NOW, or I won’t say another fucking word.”
And after being asked about when he first came to London, he snaps at Primal Scream singer Bobby Gillespie, “Oh, don’t start interrogating me.”
He sits down for drinks and recollections with various people, including Johnny Depp (who’s a producer on the film); former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams; and his own wife Victoria Mary Clarke, whom he married in 2018.
The film goes back to his early days at the family farm in Tipperary, which had no running water or electricity. The rural Ireland of his childhood is rendered through family photos, terrific archival footage, and wildly different animations.
MacGowan fondly recalls his large family, who put him up on the table to sing when he was 3 years old. “Every night was like Christmas,” he says, “with everyone singing and playing an instrument, dancing, singing, smoking, necking…”
He mentions his aunt, who taught him the catechism and “turned me into a religious maniac at age 4,” and would also buy him cigarettes, booze and help him bet on horses. When his family was criticized for letting the children drink, MacGowan shares his elders’ philosophy: “If you give them enough when they’re young, they won’t go overboard on it later on.”
That’s most certainly not true in his case, with MacGowan graduating to stout by age 5 and sniffing glue and doing every kind of drug as a rowdy teenager. He says he had his first nervous breakdown — as did his mother — after his family moved to England, where he was regularly bullied and beaten for being a “Paddy.” His father had trouble finding work at a time when signs regularly read, “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs.”
Young Shane soon found his niche as a prize-winning writer and student, then got kicked out of a prestigious school after he was found dealing drugs.
While he often appears drunk in the interviews or just nodding off, Johnny Depp asserts over one round that anyone who doubts Shane’s memory “can have the fucking back end of Pirates if he doesn’t fucking destroy them.”
Shane, not missing a beat, retorts, “What makes you think I was able to stay awake through Pirates?”
After doing a stint in a mental hospital in 1976, he says it was fate that the first band he went to see was The Sex Pistols, “who looked like they ought to be in a loony bin.” And then we get to see an enthusiastic Shane at that very concert, the best archival footage in the whole movie.
“Punk is the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says. “Going to see the Sex Pistols changed my life.” His punk alias was Shane O’Hooligan and he embraced his new status as a punk celebrity after his then-girlfriend bit off part of his ear — on camera — at a Clash concert. “I was the face of ’77. I was respected and treated with awe by other punks.”
It takes about half the movie, which runs more than two hours, to get to the forming of The Pogues. MacGowan took inspiration from all the other “ethnic” bands that were gaining success at the time. “I just thought, if people are being ethnic, might as well be my own fucking ethnic,” he says of The Pogues’ trademark blend of punk, rock and traditional Irish music.
His sense of humor is certainly still intact, as his disdain for his most successful songs, including “Fairytale of London.”
Joe Strummer called him “One of the finest writers of the century,” but MacGowan is testy about being regarded as a poet, rather than a musician: “People were always calling me a poet, but it’s very annoying to be called a poet when you’re a musician, because it means you’ve wasted your time writing the music.”
Also weighing in on interviews are his father and his late mother (who both look younger than Shane) and his sister, who denies that Shane has a death wish, despite his excessive drinking.
In an undated TV clip, an interviewer says,, “People are always saying “Shane’s got about two weeks [to live],” and he responds, “You knew me in 1976. People were saying that back then.”
MacGowan adds now, “If I really wanted to die, I’d be dead already.”
The film doesn’t cover why he’s in a wheelchair (he fell and broke his pelvis in 2015), but in one scene, he does wish he could walk with his own legs under him. And to be “prolifically writing more songs.”
The film ends with his 60th birthday tribute concert, where Irish stars including Bono and Sinéad O’Connor cover his most famous songs.
Director Temple, who also gave us the Sex Pistols doc, The Filth and the Fury, may spend a bit too much time on MacGowan’s idyllic Irish childhood. And we didn’t really need an animated sequence of that time he took acid and had sex with his friend’s girlfriend who’d nearly jumped off the balcony.
But if you’re a fan of MacGowan and the Pogues or all things punk and all things Irish, this is well worth your time.
It also includes several clips from key Irish films, including the James Mason IRA thriller Odd Man Out, The Wind That Shook the Barley, and a literal crock of gold from what looks like the cheesy ‘50s Disney movie, Darby O’Gill and the Little People.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan
is now available On Demand, Digital HD and DVD
* * * * *
Produced by Johnny Depp, Stephen Deuters, Stephen Malit
Written and Directed by Julien Temple
Featuring Shane MacGowan, Johnny Depp, Siobhan MacGowan, Maurice MacGowan,
Victoria Mary Clarke, Gerry Adams, Ann Scanlon, Bobby Gillespie, The Pogues, Bono, Nick Cave
