TYM Shane MacGowan

So, you had all the lads on their knees playing air guitar and shaking their heads to the point of pure torture, headache tablets flying everywhere to ‘Black Betty’, then hoping around the hall like complete Eejits to ‘The Specials’ and ‘Madness’. The ‘Clash’ gave us a bit of a break. All of this was of course, a way to completely impress the girls. Then came the slow set. Yes, the dreaded moment when one of the girls would approach you and ask you if you could dance with one of her friends. You would glance over to see which one it was then make that decision whether you would go for it or not. Most of the time you would reply with ‘nah, don’t really like this song’. But you know it was all a bit of craic and nerves at the same time. 

Then ‘Last Christmas’ came on and there I am slow dancing with my arms wrapped around this girl who I fancied the pants off. So, every time this song comes on, I bring myself back in time to this memorable moment. Such a nice feeling.

There are about five or six songs that bring me back every time to memorable moments like this one. And one in particular is of course ‘Fairytale of New York’. 

I can remember being at the disco in the hotel Imperial in Dundalk. I can’t remember what the nightclub was called ‘cause it has changed names so many times. I was 18 and I had fancied this girl for ages but never really got a chance to do anything about it. The only time I got to see her was up the town after school and the odd time at the nightclub, but I could never bring myself to ask her out. 

It was Christmas time, and I am pretty sure it was Christmas day night. All the lads decided to go the night club. The place was jam packed, but I knew she was there, and she knew I was there. Then the slow set came on. At 18 the slow set is not quite like when you are 15. This time around you have a couple of pints in you to help muster up that bit of courage to ask someone out. The night club was big, so you had to different levels, there was the floor around the bar with seats and couches which extended right around the venue and there was the dance floor which also had couches surrounding it. We were seating on the dance floor and across the way on the other side, the girl of my dreams with her friends. Before the slow set came on, we had been glancing at each other all evening but at the same time giving nothing away and trying to act cool. Then after the second slow song ‘Fairytale of New York’ came on and that was my moment. I loved the song. Up I got and over I went. I said nothing, just put my hand out and that was it. We spent the whole slow set together just dancing and smiling and looking into each other’s eyes. It was a magical moment and when I hear this song it brings me back to all those emotions that I felt on that Christmas night. We did meet up after that from time to time and ended up going out together for some time but life, growing up and moving on for most of us is just a natural thing. 

When I was 21, I moved to London and spent six years there managing a bar and drinking myself stupid and snorting whatever came along. At the end I was burnt out and kinda on the way out at the same time. Christmas time had come around again and this time around I was on my own sitting in a bar in Brixton drinking and talking shite to the guy next to me. The bar had a jukebox, so I decided to put on some tunes and there it was ‘Fairytale of New York’. After about a half an hour on it came and I was stopped in my tracks. I felt completely numb, I was just sitting there glaring into my pint. It was the first time I had heard the song in a long time but this time it had a serious emotional affect on me. It brought me back to Dundalk and to that night in the nightclub where I had danced and kissed that girl for the first time. As the song continued it reminded me so much of Ireland and how I was missing it so much. 

Three months later, I left London and went back home. 

When I hear the song now it brings back to those two memories every time, both of which I cherish dearly. The most recent memory is the one of have now in the present at 51 years of age and it’s still great. I listen to it all the time and I have in a way rediscovered all the great things that ‘The Pogues’ have done for music. 

So, this is my story about ‘Fairytale of New’ and what it means to me when I hear it. It’s a great song that never grows old and It’s magic, every time. It reminds me of Ireland and of how Irish I am.

But the initial idea of ‘Thank Ya Man Shane MacGowan’ has got nothing to do with this story. The initial idea came about from Yann’s (the banjo player in the band) obsession with ‘The Pogues’. He grew up listening to ‘The Pogues’ and only recently, he watched a documentary on French TV about the life of Shane MacGowan and hasn’t shup talking about it since. 

The three of us myself, Yann and Maddy were rehearsing one day when we started to just go around three chords just messing about really. Before this Yann had been telling us another story of his life growing up listening to ‘The Pogues’. So, there we were playing these three chords when I started singing the lyric ‘Thank Ya Man for Shane MacGowan’, ‘Thank ya man for all his sounds’ and that was it. Yann was in his element and pushed me to write the lyrics for the song. I didn’t know what to write about in the beginning. I was there in my room scratching my head for hours when I started to think about ‘Fairytale of New York’ and what it meant to me growing up.  So, I put the song on and had a listen then I knew what I was going to write about.

After finishing the song both musically and lyrically we decided that we had to write a letter to Mr. Macgowan himself asking permission if we could record the song because first of all, his name is in the song and secondly the main melody hook from ‘Fairytale of New York’ appears in it also. Yann was so insistent that we use this melody as a homage to ‘The Pogues’. 

So, here’s the letter to the man himself below.

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22/07/2023

Rirà – Neo Folk Trio 

Madalina Obreja – Violin/Vocals

Brian Holmes – Guitar/Percussion/Vocals

Yann Hollier – Banjo/Flute/Harmonica/Percussion/Vocals

Dear Mr. MacGowan,

I guess the first thing I would like to say is that where does one start when writing to a man like yourself. I can only presume that this letter will be one of thousands and I can only hope that this letter may get a chance to reach you at some point. If not, well that’s just life isn’t it. We say ‘time’ is a great healer but at the same time, a watched kettle never boils.

So, what’s my story? Well, it’s very simple in fact. I am an Irishman that moved to France about ten years ago and became a professional musician seven years ago. So, that’s what I do, write songs, and go around from pub to pub, singing my heart out and earning a living.

I am 51 now and about a year ago I started up a new group with my girlfriend Maddy who is now my loving wife and by best pal, and another guy called Yann, a French man with a bit of English roots.

The group was supposed to be an ‘an Irish trad group’ but after a couple of months we ditched that idea and started to write our own songs. Better craic and a little bit truer to who we are. Yann is 51 and Maddy is in her 40’s so, we have all lived a little. In other words, there are no egos in the band, we get along great. Not like when you are younger, you think you are the best and gonna make it in the music business, you’re the best group in town and after couple of years going around behaving like pricks, you are left scratching your head wondering what went wrong. But at this age of my life, it’s not about that anymore, it’s just about playing music and enjoying it for what it is, ‘the best thing since sliced bread’.

But anyway, where do The Pogues fit into all of this? Well, being an Irishman, it would be fair to say that I grew up with ‘The Pogues’. But to be honest, I never really got into them until later in life. I did have one mate, Gareth, who was completely obsessed with them. He would come out on his bike from ‘Dundalk’ to my little village of Blackrock every weekend, get pissed in the pub with myself and the lads and sing word for word all the lyrics from album to album. He hadn’t a note in his head but was a true fan. 

The next time ‘The Pogues’ entered my life was about a year ago when I started writing Irish music with my mate Yann. Another rocket who is a bit obsessed with you guys. I think is hasn’t shut up now for about six months about the ARTE documentary he watched about your life and your friendship with Johnny Depp. I watched about five minutes of it but had to turn it off because it was dubbed in French, and I just couldn’t get into it. I speak French but just couldn’t listen to this French guy trying to imitate your voice. But in fairness, Yann loved it so I can respect that of course cause he’s a great songwriter and musician and loves ‘The Pogues’.

But, to cut a long story short and not to bore you to death. A few months ago, we were rehearsing and just dickin’ around with some chords. We had just listened again to another ‘Pogue’ story from Yann when I started singing ‘Thank ya man for Shane Macgowan’, ‘Thank ya man for all his sounds’, and that was it. We decided to write a song based around these lyrics and the chords we were playing. Now, as you probably know yourself, when a lyric comes out of your gob for the first time and it sounds great, it is very difficult to steer away from that lyric so, you end up writing the story based on that main lyric. Well, that’s what happened with this song. My initial reaction at first was, ‘jasus’, we can’t use the name Shane MacGowan in a song plus the main melody hook from ‘Fairytale of New York’. We will be either mocked at by the Irish or shot at by the English. I also said to myself that maybe it’s a bit pretentious because some might think that it is a deliberate attempt to get famous or to have your song go viral on the web. But at the end of the day as ‘Roy Keane’ would say, we’ve asked ourselves again and again, “Ok, what should we do?”, well after a couple of minutes of rather non intense discussion, we said “Fuck it, why not, we are too old to care what people think, let’s write the song, send it off to the man himself and see if he gives us a blessing to go ahead with it”

And that’s it in a nutshell. The song is called ‘Than Ya Man for Shane MacGowan’ and it was written in homage to all the great things that ‘The Pogues’ have brought to the music industry and the world we lived in at the time and the world we live in today. 

They have inspired so many groups over the years and they are currently a household name in my own house and a blessing to my own group ‘Rirà’. 

Please see a copy of:

1. Lyrics

2. Photo image for the song

3. ‘Thank Ya Man for Shane MacGowan’, mp3 – pending release.

So, from myself, Maddy and Yann we wish you well on your continuation and we will just wait in excitement for a reply. 

So, as we say in Ireland ‘Put the kettle on there Roisin’.

All the best and kind regards

Brian, Maddy and Yann