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In a not-too-distant era, and here I slip in my ego, I was doing my civil service in a nursing home: "Pio Pertusati," a name, a guarantee of sentimental successes.
Down there, among the smells of stale urine and bewildered faces, I'd find myself sweeping the floor with a walkman plugged into my ears and the airwaves broadcasting the daringly piratical Pogues from Dublin.
Ahhhhh, life returned and the wind of death rising from the stairwell disappeared... there before me opened up herds of nursing home colts dancing with Guinness in hand, singing "The sick bed of Cuchulain".
Pogue Mahone, literally kiss my ass. A historic group with a meteoric career as bright as it was short, authors of songs that mixed authentic Irish folk with rock and even some new wave sounds like on this album, produced by Elvis Costello who for the occasion bedded bassist Cat o'Riordan.
Shane McGowan, an alcoholic who wrote/writes songs full of lopsided stories: drunks, whores, conflicted loves, tales of migration, old men playing cards in the tavern fantasizing about pussy, melancholic ballads that make you want to leave your woman and job and just write on DeBaser. For life.
This album presents all the ingredients of a Pogues stew: a haggis where the lard is nice and thick and you can feel all the little innards melting in your mouth... what a liver-busting delicacy! If you've been to Ireland or Scotland, if you've drunk the beer they have there, without all those damn bubbles they sell to us Mediterraneans, you'll understand what I'm talking about... I'm talking about getting drunk without realizing it, when the elixir goes down so easy you don't notice: the same feeling you get with Eastern European beers, above all the Slovenian Pivo... its own death.
"Kiss my ass" sounds the story of our lives, what a definition! But it's all true, you can wallow in it and go arm-in-arm, and occasionally send some sad metalhead addict off to Beelzebub... here you have to dance with a pint in hand and a woman twirling on the tavern floor! You need the accordions and flutes playing "Dirty Old Town", practically an anthem of cheekiness, the melancholy of good poor boys, the "poor but beautiful."
Ah, but do we want to say what "Rainy Days in Soho" is? But yes, let's say it damn it! A damn melancholically crafted song, an amazing coolness, there you have it! And now send me here the music critics and I'll shove a pipe connected to the barrel of Pils, the Prague beer to know, and bamboozle them until they can listen to only this and Mino Reitano, another man perpetually drunk and perpetually inspired.
Amen.
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