Happy St. Paddy's Day

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Love the Pogues, Dubliners and this song. Shane MacGowan is an amazing songwriter.

Don’t disagree, but this song is attributed to J.M. Crofts in 1937.

I know he didn’t write The Irish Rover. My comment stands alone; I believe he’s an amazing songwriter. I should have been more specific.

I like that story about how he wrote Fairytale of New York as a bet with Elvis Costello to show he was a better songwriter

I really want to know what you are smoking cause that is some really strong shit to spout such shit idiotic takes

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How can anyone tell whether his lyrics are good or bad? He's completely unintelligible and has been for decades.

Was that the comment about them being the only good band of the 80's?

Love that Irish punk's voice.

Listen to enough Punk and/or enough Irish accents and it's a fair bit easier. Also The Pogues were big at a time when people still bought CDs and cassettes, and those had liner notes with the lyrics in 'em.

I'm from near Dublin and Shane & Victoria have been sort-of-regular guests at my mother's house for as long as I can remember. Shane is unintelligible even in one-on-one conversation. His accent has nothing to do with it.

Fairytale of New York is still ranked among my favorite songs ever.

That's kind of hilarious. I always thought he just sounded like a pretty typical Punk vocalist with some Irish pronunciations added to the mix, but I guess it's a bit more than that.

Still, when he wanted to drive it home on songs like Thousands Are Sailing I always thought he annunciated well enough.

Been listening to them, Flogging Molly, and Blood or Whiskey all month. I mean, I listen to them in other months too, but it's become my March tradition.

His alcoholism is a big part of his slurring I believe. I wouldn't call it hilarious.

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Yes his alcoholism made it worse but I always understood him well enough. There were other singers of that era who clearly prioritized sound of word over meaning and were also hard to understand. Michael Stipe for example in R.E.M. I find it sad you know the guy personally and took the time to make this comment. And since plenty of us do understand his lyrics in songs, he really is not completely unintelligible when singing.

Punk music has never been about enunciating or singing properly. Someone like Christy Moore would not take the time to cover Fairytale of New York if it were not an awesome song.

I guess I just always found it tiresome that this guy comes over and mumbles incoherently while everyone crowds around him and pretends he’s being profound. He’s like a brain-damaged, foul-smelling Chauncy The Gardener.

At least he’s cheerful I guess, that’s worth a lot in my book. And Victoria is lots of fun even on a bad day.

I’ve not been home in a few years, so I’ve not seen them since he got his new teeth. Maybe he’s easier to understand now.

I always thought that was a huge part of it too. The teeth. I saw him live in the mid 90s. I can see why interacting with him might be difficult--the alcoholism was well known and yeah speaking he was hard to understand (on a live mic anyway I've never met the guy). But I love their music and don't find him hard to understand when singing. The studio cuts always sounded comprehensible to me.