Description
From six separate live sessions, it’s also twenty-three different tracks. Regular visitors through the doors of the BBC in the Eighties, the mainstream, Shane MacGowan and The Pogues might have seemed strange bedfellows, but they probably managed to stay on their best behaviour for long enough to hammer out four-song sets that have thankfully remained intact in the archive. So we’re back to dateline April ’84 when they’re still Pogue Mahone and John Peel has awarded them the badge of honour that comes with the invitation to a Peel session.
Another Peel session from December ’84 combines marching, whistle-led stomps with a seasonal Danny Boy and waltzing Navigator. The instantly recognisable, folk-inspired, shanty punk with lyrics spilling over the rim at twenty to the dozen. Often a race to the finish as the tempos get pushed and pushed. There might not a Fairytale Of New York – at that stage maybe no more than a twinkle in their eye – but we do get Dirty Old Town as the iconic and bonafide classic folk song moment in the set. Gawd bless yer, Ewan MacColl.
The Rake At The Gates Of Hell and the snaking Byzantine style of Turkish Song Of The Damned that close proceedings are more refined and considered arrangements, not simply reliant on lightning fast delivery. Trend setters and niche carvers with the irrepressible Shane MacGowan out front, The Pogues were destined to be unlikely standard bearers. This BBC set confirms the legend.
