Shane MacGowan, the brilliant but chaotic former songwriter and frontman for the Pogues who reinvigorated interest in Irish music in the 1980s
by harnessing it to the propulsive power of punk rock, has died. He was
65.. MacGowan emerged from London’s punk scene of the late 1970s and spent
nine tumultuous years with the initial incarnation of the Pogues. Rising
from North London pubs, the band was performing in stadiums by the late
1980s, before MacGowan’s addictions and mental and physical deterioration forced the
band to fire him. He later founded Shane MacGowan the Popes, with
whom he recorded and toured in the 1990s. His best-known are the opening lines of his biggest hit, an alcoholics’
lament-turned-unlikely Christmas classic titled “Fairytale of New
York.”.

“I was good at writing,” . MacGowan told Richard Balls, who wrote his authorized biography “A Furious Devotion,” which was published in 2021.
A documentary about his life - Crock Of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan - was released in 2020.
Irish President Michael D Higgins described Shane MacGowan as one of musics greatest lyricists.







  Nick Cave called him a true friend and the greatest songwriter of his generation, adding it was a very sad day.
I met my love by the gas works wall. Dreamed a dream by the old canal.I Kissed my girl by the factory wall. Dirty old town. Dirty old town.