The late Shane MacGowan

Hospital pictures on social media had come steadily. Whenever a famous musician played near the hospital where Shane MacGowan resided, they stopped to see him. 

MacGowan died Nov. 30 after suffering from encephalitis and the toll decades of hard living takes on the body. His death was no surprise, but as a longtime fan it still hits long after the music stopped. 

The timing of his death almost feels right, since the Pogues best known song, Fairytale of New York, always decorates Christmas playlists around the U.S. The duet between MacGowan and the late Kristy MacColl travels through the highs and lows of a relationship in a few short verses. MacColl also died at Christmastime, albeit much more tragically.

The Pogues remain a unique band, a meeting of traditional Irish music and punk rock that no one else has ever really pulled off like they did. MacGowan, the wild frontman famous for his rotting teeth, had strangely soulful voice and a knack for peppering song lyrics with Irish references. Shane sounded like the guy down the bar who crooned along with the jukebox - if the guy at the bar also wrote the songs. 

MacGowan’s drinking became a problem by Peace and Love, then got booted him from boted from the band in the early 1990s after Hell’s Ditch. He hooked up with The Popes and record two albums of Pogues-like material before returning to the Pogues in the early 2000s. 

Seeing him on tour twice in the last decade of the band’s activity (they dissolved upon the death of guitarist/songwriter Philip Chevron in October 2013), MacGowan was much diminished. He stumbled through song introductions even as his voice still sounds in good form. But he stepped aside during long stretches of each show, clearly no longer the frenetic singer of the 1980s prime. 

Mostly I remember the good times associated with the Pogues playing. College parties were my first exposure. In my 20s, I found the like-minded friends who thought nothing of long road trips to see the band live. 

Although a shell of his younger self for many years, MacGowan’s music never left me. Other bands came and went, but the Pogues stuck around. They were too different to ignore. Some years I only listened on St. Patrick’s Day. But the music often fit any season, its propulsive beat as catchy as ever. 

Even as Shane MacGowan has joined those went on first, we have plenty of songs to toast his departure – Body of an American, The Parting Glass or The Broad Majestic Shannon could kick off any tribute. Only a brown beverage will do if you’re toasting him.