The Pogues
The Pogues are a band of mixed Irish and English background, playing traditional Irish folk with influences from the punk rock movement. They reached international prominence in the 1980s and 1990s before breaking up in 1996. The band began performing together again in 2001, though they have yet to record new music. They merged traditional Irish music with the energy of contemporary punk, essentially inventing Celtic punk. They were also highly influential on the larger Celtic Fusion scene. Frontman Shane MacGowan described their style as “playing Irish music to a young rock audience”. The music press at the time dubbed their style as “Punk Céilidh” due to the energy of the frontman and the prevalence of pogo dancing at their earlier gigs.
The Pogues were founded in King’s Cross, a district of North London, in 1982 as Pogue Mahone—pogue mahone being the Anglicisation of the Irish póg mo thóin, meaning “kiss my arse”. The band specialised in Irish folk music, often playing with the energy of the punk rock scene from which several of the members had their roots.
Their politically-tinged music was reminiscent of The Clash, with whom they played (Joe Strummer produced one of their albums and even joined the group briefly), and used traditional Irish instruments such as the tin whistle, banjo, cittern, mandolin, accordion, and more. In the later incarnations of the band, after the departure of Shane MacGowan, rock instruments such as the electric guitar would become more prominent. The first of The Pogues’ albums, Red Roses for Me, borrows much from the punk tradition of MacGowan’s previous band The Nipple Erectors (later dubbed The Nips).
Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash
Rum Sodomy & the Lash is the second album by the Anglo-Irish musical group The Pogues, released in 1985.
The title is taken from a quote often attributed to Winston Churchill (“Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.”) Singer and primary songwriter Shane MacGowan claimed that the title was suggested by drummer Andrew Ranken.
The cover artwork is based on The Raft of the Medusa, a painting by Théodore Géricault, with the band members’ faces replacing those of the men on the raft.
In August 1985, the album was launched on HMS Belfast — and one writer at the event was thrown into the Thames. It reached number 13 in the UK charts. The track “A Pair of Brown Eyes” went on to reach number 72 in the UK singles chart. “The Old Main Drag” would later appear on the soundtrack to the film My Own Private Idaho. A remastered and expanded version of Rum, Sodomy and the Lash was released on January 11, 2005. The cut “A Pistol for Paddy Garcia, the b side on “Dirty Old town” and which only appeared on the initial cassette release, was moved to the bonus tracks.
It has often made its way onto lists of greatest albums. In 2000 Q magazine placed it at number 93 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked number 445 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Pitchfork Media named it the 67th best album of the 1980s
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