‘Red Roses For Me’ At 40: A Track-By-Track Guide To The Pogues’ Debut Album

The Battle Of Brisbane

Though credited solely to Shane MacGowan, The Battle Of Brisbane is a sprightly instrumental knees-up starring James Fearnley’s accordion and Spider Stacy’s tin whistle. Its title derives from a World War Two clash between Australian and North American military personnel stationed in Brisbane, the capital of the Australian state of Queensland. The exact reasons for the skirmish are difficult to pin down, though it would appear tensions arose because the US forces received better rations than the Australians. What is certain is that the conflict ended with one Aussie serviceman dead and five others wounded.

The Auld Triangle

The Auld Triangle has long been synonymous with Brendan Behan. However, while the song first appeared in Behan’s critically acclaimed 1954 play, The Quare Fellow, it was actually penned by one of Behan’s Dublin contemporaries, Dick Shannon. Shane MacGowan was also aware of Luke Kelly And The Dubliners’ impassioned late-60s take of The Auld Triangle, but he put his own stamp on the much-loved Irish prison ballad on Red Roses For Me, his impassioned vocal perfectly supported by his bandmates’ hauntingly sparse musical backdrop.

Waxie’s Dargle

One of a bunch of traditional Irish songs spruced up and given a shot of adrenaline for Red Roses For Me, Waxie’s Dargle relates to the annual holiday excursion that Dublin candle makers (otherwise known as “Waxies”) undertook to the Irish coastal town of Bray during the 18th and 19th centuries. Originating as a children’s song, Waxie’s Dargle later became a popular Irish pub song, and The Pogues’ suitably wired rendition suggests that the group relished the chance to reinvent this ribald tale of seaside misdemeanours in their own image.

Boys From The County Hell

Few singles desirous of radio play feature lyrics such as “We’ll eat your friggin’ entrails and we won’t give a damn”, but then few lyricists go about their craft like the late Shane MacGowan, so toning it down was never an option with Boys From The County Hell – the second of two singles lifted from Red Roses For Me. Not surprisingly, this potent hard-drinkers’ ode (which also refers to the Irish “Blue shirts” who fought on Franco’s side during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s) didn’t make the daytime BBC Radio 1 playlist, but it did become an instant live favourite, and it retains its nihilistic thrust to this day.

Sea Shanty

Traditionally, sea shanties are songs sung by sailors to provide rhythm while doing jobs on the decks of ships. They can often be ribald affairs, yet few feature imagery as visceral as the visions of oceanic hell Shane MacGowan conjures on Sea Shanty, in which he brags, “There was never a wilder bastard than me on the sea.” His bandmates support him admirably with a vigorous jig which somehow remains on an even keel for the song’s duration.

Dark Streets Of London

The Pogues’ debut single, Dark Streets Of London, was released while the group were still called Pogue Mahone, and it racked up a fair bit of airplay until it came to light that their name translated as “kiss my arse” in English. The BBC responded by partially banning the song, leading a bemused NME to wonder why it was only “permissible to say ‘kiss my arse’ in a language no one understands” between the hours of 8pm and midnight. Ultimately, it made little difference. With its bawdy references to boozing and bookies, the riotous Dark Streets Of London was the ideal introduction to The Pogues’ singular talent, and a further frisson of controversy only added to their outsider chic.

Streams Of Whiskey

When writing Streams Of Whiskey, Shane MacGowan may well have been channelling either Brendan Behan or Flann O’Brien, whose novel The Poor Mouth features a mountain with a cave in which two streams of whiskey flowed free. Wherever the truth lies, MacGowan’s Streams Of Whiskey remains one of the greatest ever odes to serious drinking, and it remained a staple of The Pogues’ set throughout their career.

Admitting in his memoir that that the song made him “want to follow Shane wherever he went”, James Fearnley wrote passionately, “Like no other song, it made me want to drink and drink like Shane drank. I wanted to go to the Chelsea too – wherever that pub was – and walk in on my feet but leave there on my back. I loved the recklessness and the bitter joy of the song.”

Poor Paddy

A much-loved Irish and American folk song, Poor Paddy is also known as Pat Works On The Railway and Fillimiooriay. It was first published as sheet music during the 1860s and eventually made its way onto wax when Ernest Bourne’s 1938 recording, titled A-Working On The Railway, was released in 1941 by Alan Lomax for the US Library Of Congress.

The song has since been performed by numerous folk luminaries, with Ewan MacColl, The Wolfe Tones and Luke Kelly And The Dubliners all tackling it before The Pogues. Shane MacGowan and company, however, bring out the song’s melodrama with an arrangement that veers from sparse and solemn to rampant, upbeat and celebratory.

Dingle Regatta

Regattas (effectively boat races, but catering to vessels of varying shapes and sizes) are a feature of the Irish summer season, with the one held in Dingle Bay, County Kerry, often making for an especially memorable diary entry. The Pogues thus saluted this notable annual event with the self-explanatory Dingle Regatta: a spirited instrumental track combining a traditional Irish jig with a piece of music composed by the band’s multi-instrumentalist, Jem Finer.

Revealing more about the song’s genesis, Finer told the Pogues fansite Poguetry, “My writing career started with making up instrumental interludes, intros etc. This was the first tune I wrote that was too big to fit inside a song!”

Greenland Whale Fisheries

Another traditional tune, reputedly dating back to the 18th century, Greenland Whale Fisheries first originated in the West Indies, but after sailors of all stripes co-opted it, the song became famous all over the Atlantic Ocean. Telling the story of a whaling expedition that leaves for far-flung Greenland, the song begins in high spirits before taking on a darker hue when the sailors’ prey (the whale) turns hunter, striking the whaling boat, capsizing it with its tail and drowning five sailors for good measure.

Prior to The Pogues taking it on, Greenland Whale Fisheries was recorded by artists including Judy Collins and Theodore Bikel, and – as is the case with many traditional songs – its lyrics have been altered down the years. In some cases, the song concludes with the captain mourning the loss of his five men, but in The Pogues’ aggressive, punky rendering, the loss of the whale weighs far heavier on the skipper’s heart.

Down In The Ground Where The Dead Men Go

In Here Comes Everybody, James Fearnley recalled that “Shane and Spider were no slouches when it came to blood-curdling screams”, and that “Shane howled until his eyes watered” during the recording of Red Roses For Me’s most visceral track, Down In The Ground Where The Dead Men Go.

Such primeval expression, however, feels entirely appropriate, for the song is a requiem for those lost during Ireland’s Great Famine: a devastating seven-year period during the mid-19th century during which the country’s potato crop repeatedly failed and four million people lost their lives. MacGowan’s stark lyrics pull few punches (“Four million people starved to death/Could smell the curse on their dying breath”), but his nightmarish, Hieronymus Bosch-esque imagery is brilliantly matched by the feverish intensity of The Pogues’ performance.

Kitty

Kitty is credited as a traditional Irish tune, though details of its historical background are scant. In Ann Scanlon’s book The Lost Decade, Shane MacGowan calls it his “favourite track” on Red Roses For Me, adding: “It’s a song I learnt from my mother and I’ve only ever met one person who wasn’t out of my family or from round our particular little area in Tipperary who knows it.”

Regardless of its history, Kitty became a live favourite from the get-go, and it sounds tailor-made for The Pogues. A slow, tender song of parting, suffused with the sadness inherent in all great Celtic-tinged ballads, it’s performed with an admirable restraint and – after the relentless darkness of Down In The Ground Where The Dead Men Go – it ensures this singular debut album comes to rest with a welcome modicum of dignity.

Buy the 40th-anniversary edition of ‘Red Roses For Me’.