Shane MacGowan

From Wikiquote

Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan (born December 25, 1957) is an English-born Irish musician. He is best known as the original singer and songwriter with The Pogues.

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• The British press have been giving me six months to live for the past twenty years - they must be getting pissed off interviewing me by now.

• I'm just following the Irish tradition of songwriting, the Irish way of life, the human way of life. Cram as much pleasure into life, and rail against the pain you have to suffer as a result. Or scream and rant with the pain, and wait for it to be taken away with beautiful pleasure.

• The most important thing to remember about drunks is that drunks are far more intelligent than non-drunks. They spend a lot of time talking in pubs, unlike workaholics who concentrate on their careers and ambitions, who never develop their higher spiritual values, who never explore the insides of their head like a drunk does.

• People are talking about immigration, emigration and the rest of the fucking thing. It's all fucking crap. We're all human beings, we're all mammals, we're all rocks, plants, rivers. Fucking borders are just such a pain in the fucking arse.

[edit] Quotes about Shane MacGowan

• I remember going to the Hope & Anchor [a pub where many folk punk acts played in London]. The Pogues were all on stage and ready, it was a full house, but they hadn't started yet. Then this character shambled in through the door and shambled downstairs. I thought, 'Jesus, you're not letting that guy in are you?'. Then he walked on stage. That guy was Shane MacGowan!
  • Robyn Hitchcock, speaking on the Folk Britannia television programme, BBC Four, first broadcast February 2006

• I don't think anybody has been able to recast a tradition as well as Shane MacGowan did with the Pogues... He took a great Irish tradition and remade it without breaking it.
  • Billy Bragg

• He is an angel near the end who needs support, he's too far gone to stop drinking, he has an illness that cannot be cured and as far as I can see the end is near for him.
  • Sinéad O'Connor

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