Bruce Springsteen has written an essay celebrating the “flashing, alive and historically rich” songwriting of the late Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan, as an all-star covers album is announced featuring Springsteen, Kate Moss, Johnny Depp and others.
Springsteen’s cover of A Rainy Night in Soho is out now, the first song to be released from 20th Century Paddy: The Songs of Shane MacGowan, which is out 13 November.
Springsteen begins his essay by placing MacGowan in a long lineage of artists including Woody Guthrie, Little Richard, Miles Davis, Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin and John Lydon, who were “geniuses … both timeless and the embodiment of their moment in time”. He continues:
Many, unsurprisingly, led difficult lives not easily bound by the shackles of convention. They were natural rebels unable to stifle or heed the impulses that led them to their glory and personal hardships. Great art is by nature lawless. We do not get to choose our obsessions. We do not get to dictate our blessings or our transgressions. It’s a little joke the gods play on us. Shane’s voice was so deeply real, profane and honest, his writing so flashing, alive and historically rich its genesis appeared as a mystery to all including, I believe, its creator. The dangerous joy, the glee and courage, the humour in the face of fate, the wild ramble of a life driven towards the artistic heavens and the daily balm of self-obliteration. Shane was all naked bottomless humanity. Threatening to force us to ask ourselves if we were living deeply, authentically. He was raw, hilarious, no apologies and profound. His soul was filled with the transgressive and ecstatic properties of the saints. I don’t know who’ll be listening to my music in 100 years but I know they’ll be listening to Shane’s.
Springsteen also reveals that he spent “a lovely afternoon” with MacGowan shortly before his death. “He was not well but he and his wife, Victoria [Mary Clarke], proved warm and gracious hosts. As I left, I thanked him for his beautiful work, his music, his songs, his life. I stood in his warmth, kissed him and told him I loved him.”
Other artists contributing to the album include US stars Tom Waits and Steve Earle; British indie legends the Libertines, Primal Scream and the Jesus and Mary Chain; and a rich, multigenerational variety of Irish musicians from Lisa O’Neill to Damien Dempsey and the surviving Pogues.
There are a couple of starry duets, too: Hozier paired with Jessie Buckley, and Johnny Depp paired with Imelda May. The track listing has not yet been announced and details of Kate Moss’s contribution have not been given, but it will continue a fitful musical career for the British supermodel, which includes duets with Primal Scream, Babyshambles and the Lemonheads, plus tambourine contributions to a number of Oasis songs.
The Dublin Simon Community, a charity working with the city’s homeless population, will receive 50% of the artist royalties generated by the 20th Century Paddy album.
MacGowan’s wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, said in a statement: “Shane’s spirit and songwriting are eternally exalted through this glorious collection, each song is uniquely and graciously interpreted by these beyond-beautiful artists and his family are humbled by and thankful to each and every one of the musicians involved.”
Born in England to Irish parents, MacGowan remains one of the most distinctive and celebrated voices in Irish music thanks to his variously raucous and heartbreaking songs, performed both with the Pogues and solo. The Pogues’ Christmas classic Fairytale of New York is particularly enduring, returning to the UK Top 10 every year since 2017.
MacGowan died aged 65 in November 2023 following a long period of ill health, and the new compilation album is the latest in a series of posthumous musical tributes.
In March 2024, New York’s Carnegie Hall hosted a joint tribute to MacGowan and Sinéad O’Connor – who also died in 2023, aged 56 – which featured performers including David Gray, Dropkick Murphys and Glen Hansard, all of whom return for the new compilation.
The Pogues marked the 40th anniversary of their debut album, Red Roses for Me, the same year with a series of gigs – including one at London’s Hackney Empire, which featured guest appearances by members of Fontaines DC, Lankum and Goat Girl, among others.
Earlier this week they announced a greatest hits tour across Europe in November and December, again with special guest appearances planned.
