Shane MacGowan and The Popes
The Crock Of Gold

Now, you can have whatever opinion you want about destiny, chance, predestination, innatism, and various nonsense. The fact is, whether they felt it or not, whether it was already written or not, there are people who couldn't have ended up any other way than they actually did. Well, one might say that it's not a great insight, in hindsight.

Well, go and look at the old Shane. No one who has even seen a vintage photo of him with his not-so-loyal pards or Pogues could honestly say that someone like that could have been anything other than what he became. Shane MacGowan was born to be Shane MacGowan, essentially a sordid drunk with a checkerboard smile and a voice like a cat repeatedly rubbed against a studded hair shirt Swiffer. And he couldn't have ended other than how he did. That is, in all likelihood, lying sprawled on the floor of a pub just as sordid as he is.
In short, if one still hasn't figured out the type: take Bukowski, you know? That American who drank, fornicated, bet on horses, and sometimes wrote. Well, him. Punch him in the face, it should break half his teeth and make him swallow a good quarter of them. Transplant a pair of antenna-dish-type ears onto him. Glue onto him a genealogy of the sort Irish And Proud To Be, complete with very Celtic capitals. Finally, tie him to a chair and force him to listen to the Sex Pistols for a week straight. There, now you should have something quite similar. Artistically, outwardly, humanly.

Kicked out by the Pogues with Celtic kicks to the backside due to his addiction to various things, among which evidently and no less harmfully the names starting with po and ending with es, the sordid drunk creates his own private fairytale castle. The Popes, indeed. And he continues to do what he has always done and what he does best. Languid, heart-wrenching, and sacrilegious ballads with a vaguely Guinness aftertaste. Half punk and half folk rides with a Kilkenny aroma. After all, here or there, there's always beer.
And after the Serpent (ah, that sense of biblical damnation so maritime and so Cave), here he is in front of the Pot of Gold, directly from James Stephens' novel (Irish chauvinists find it damnably easy to indulge in literary quotations, but almost only with people purely from their own home. Here, even Beckett is invoked, with More Pricks Than Kicks). So here is a (long!) shamelessly self-celebratory parade of classic and alcoholic pieces. A summary of Irish punk-folk and the Shane character. The tale of the many Paddys (one of those proper names that have become common, a bit like bobby), whether they drown in a mug for sheer whim, follow the rover vocation, or fight with Mauser blows against the bad English in the moor. The procession of the whores, the homeless in Aqualung style, the damned to the bottle's hell. All sprayed with punk drums that sound drunk themselves. With a sprightly and omnipresent accordion. With the limping tinkling of the banjo, halfway between Woodie Guthrie and the Dubliners, which had always marvelously dusted the sound of the best Pogues. Perhaps with the Popes, there's a bit of a lack of that typically haunting component - an adjective for which I can't find an Italian equivalent that captures the idea as well - like a witchy sabbath, like Wild Cats Of Kilkenny, well. Here, compared to the Pogues, it's all a bit more serene, more do fa sol rather than la minor mi minor sol, in short. But just Shane's faltering voice would be enough, even if it were placed over, I don't know, the Cocteau Twins, to awaken pleasant déjà vus. Ultimately, a spill of already done things, but in which it's so easy and beautiful to wallow. As if an old drinking buddy who was missing, got a bit lost, is back here with us, and so let's drink heavily. As we've done so far, after all. Practically the parable of the prodigal son. In reverse.

So there you go. As if this guy cares about innovating. He's already done enough by inventing punk-folk. And that's what he likes to do. That's what he wants to continue doing until the devil drags his damn charred soul away.
I don't know, I suppose it's also a matter of predisposition in my case. Like he was destined to be Shane MacGowan, I was destined to love him unconditionally in any of his artistic manifestations. Well, maybe it's just predisposition. But I like it damn well like this. Never change, old carcass of a Shane.