MacGowan tribute album is the measure of his dreams

In the years before his death in 2023, Shane MacGowan's often spoke about his wish to write a whole album with the word "Paddy" in every single song title.

The Tipp man and Pogue defiantly subverted the cliché of the drunken Irish rebel and threw it back into the faces of the Brits and Yanks, and above all else, he was always a Paddy with attitude.

And now three years after his passing, everyone, and we do mean everyone, gets to be a Paddy for life on this 36-track triple album tribute (try saying that with Shane’s old teeth) to the great man. It sees the great, the good and the WTF? (Primal Scream massacring A Pair of Brown Eyes, universal irritant Johnny Depp yawning his way through Haunted with Imelda May) covering songs from the professional hellraiser’s scrambled oeuvre.

We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences

Overseen by MacGowan’s widow Victoria Mary Clarke and his sister Siobhan, there is a lot to ponder on this epic (read: far too long) anthology of beauty and filth, poetry and Celtic punk. Springsteen turns in a stately (read: worthy) rendition of a Rainy Night in Soho, Garron Noone belies his image as a cuddly comedian with a fantastic White City, and a spoken word Bob Geldof goes Behan meets Budowski on a jazz noir take on St John of Gods.

There is a lot going on and naturally, Hozier and Jessie Buckley’s Fairytale of New York will be the big selling point. It’s just a pity that it’s a s tad luvvie and very sanitised (oops, there goes the "F word") but at least there’s a nice story behind it. Unbeknownst to them until the day of recording, they did their duet in the exact same vocal booth in London’s RAK’s Studio 1 where Shane and Kirsty McColl traded barbs and bouquets nearly 40 years previously.

We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences

The fast songs are often the best, from Mundy’s reading of Victoria (with the legendary line "little fat monk singing Gloria" and no, Van isn’t here) to U2 dusting off the xylophone for a lovely, throwaway Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah to the late Glen Hansard’s galloping Bottle of Smoke. The Pogues themselves, and these are very much their songs too, give it extra Joe Strummer sneer on a biting new version of Gabrielle, a single from MacGowan’s days as Shane O’Holligan with this first band The Nips.

Sometimes, it’s often the less famous acts who leave the best impression, such as Nenagh singer Tom Creagh’s rumbustious take on Paddy Public Enemy No 1, Shane’s defiant panegyric to slain IRA man turned INLA leader Dominic McGlinchey. There are surprises too - Kate Moss’s indie waif goes sixties girl band singer on Lonesome Highway and it drips with longing, while The Jesus and Mary Chain finally get to release their version of I’ll Be Your Handbag, a song that MacGowan wrote for the band in the '90s, and it bristles with marvellous buzzsaw guitar insolence. The bewilderingly still here Pete Doherty and The Libertines do not disgrace themselves on Sayonara, and designer angst pop act Picture This discover hitherto unsuspected folk roots on their beatific version of Aisling.

We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences

Elsewhere, the indominable Drop Kick Murphys, accordions and blazing banjos cranked up to breakneck speed, batter seven shades of blarney out of The Body of an American. Accompanied only by the ominous drone of a concertina, David Gray’s brings a new level of heartsick pain to The Old Man Drag, MacGowan’s tale of ups and downs and uppers and downers on the streets of Soho.

Other than the overly pious Springsteen, rock’s old guard are represented by three of the best things here. Steve Earle, sounding like a Yukon prospector, rocks out on a grizzled If I Should Fall From Grace With God, while Tom Waits (who once remarked that The Pogues "Played like sailors on shore leave") turns Summer in Siam into a bizarre twilight lullaby.

It’s far too long but the playing throughout is peerless and the cross genre appeal of the acts says it all. Hell is raised, heaven is wished for, pint glasses are smashed, and a certain someone somewhere is cackling over their very own crock of gold.

50% of artist royalties from 20th Century Paddy - The Songs of Shane MacGowan will be donated to the Dublin Simon Community

20th Century Paddy - The Songs of Shane MacGowan tracklisting:

A Rainy Night in Soho - Bruce Springsteen

Fairytale of New York - Hozier/Jessie Buckley

Sayonara - The Libertines

Aisling - Picture This

Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six - LYRA

Turkish Song of the Damned - Madra Salach

The Body of an American - Dropkick Murphys

The Snake With the Eyes of Garnet - Amble

The Broad Majestic Shannon - Liam O'Maonlai

If I Should Fall From Grace With God - Steve Earle

Fiesta - Johnny Mac and The Faithful

Paddy Public Enemy No.1 - Tom Creagh

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah - U2

Gabrielle - The Pogues

A Pair of Brown Eyes - Primal Scream

The Sunnyside of the Street - Kingfishr

Victoria - Mundy

Donegal Express - Pinch of Snuff

The Old Main Drag - David Gray

I'll Be Your Handbag - The Jesus and Mary Chain

Streams of Whiskey - The High Kings

The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn - David Keenan

USA - Jimmy Artache

Rain Street - Lisa Moorish

White City - Garron Noone

Summer in Siam - Tom Waits

Sally MacLennane - Damien Dempsey

Mother Mo Chroi - Moya Brennan

The Song With No Name - The Murder Capital

Lonesome Highway - Kate Moss

Haunted - Johnny Depp & Imelda May

Dark Streets of London - Lisa O'Neill

St John of Gods - Bob Geldof

Bottle of Smoke - Glen Hansard

London You're a Lady - Cronin

You're The One - Camille O'Sullivan