Shane MacGowan, former frontman and songwriter for the influential band The Pogues, has died after a long illness at age 65. The news was shared by his wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, on Instagram along with a joint statement from Clarke, MacGowan’s sister Sioban, and father Maurice.
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Clarke wrote in part, “Shane who will always be the light that I hold before me and the measure of my dreams and the love of my life and the most beautiful soul and beautiful angel and the sun and the moon and the start and end of everything that I hold dear has gone to be with Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother Therese.” MacGowan’s family shared that he passed “peacefully” early Thursday morning (November 30) surrounded by his wife and family.
MacGowan was born in Kent, England, to Irish parents and was instrumental in renewing interest in Irish music and culture in the 1980s. In founding The Pogues, he drew upon traditional Irish music and themes such as Irish nationalism, history, and the Irish diaspora in England and the U.S. He led the band from 1982 to 1991, during which time they released one of their biggest hits, “Fairytale of New York,” with Kristy MacColl.
In 2001, MacGowan returned to The Pogues after being let go in 1991, and the band embarked on sold-out tours for the next few consecutive years with MacGowan back at the mic. In a 2015 interview with Vice, MacGowan admitted that he was tired of touring and that the band members had grown to hate each other in that setting. “I don’t hate the band at all — they’re friends,” he said. “I like them a lot. We were friends for years before we joined the band. We just got a bit sick of each other. We’re friends as long as we don’t tour together. I’ve done a hell of a lot of touring. I’ve had enough of it.”
MacGowan was influential to a handful of his contemporaries, such as Pete Doherty, Johnny Depp, Nick Cave, Joe Strummer, Steve Earle, and Sinead O’Connor, among others. Following his death, the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, put out a statement on MacGowan’s talent, influence, and his love and respect for his Irish heritage.
“Shane will be remembered as one of music’s greatest lyricists,” said Higgins. “So many of his songs would be perfectly crafted poems, if that would not have deprived us of the opportunity to hear him sing them. The genius of Shane’s contribution includes the fact that his songs capture within them, as Shane would put it, the measure of our dreams – of so many worlds, and particularly those of love, of the emigrant experience and of facing the challenges of that experience with authenticity and courage, and of living and seeing the sides of life that so many turn away from.”
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