Shane Macgowan Quotes

People are talking about immigration, emigration and the rest of the fucking thing. It's all fucking crap. We're all human beings, we're all mammals, we're all rocks, plants, rivers. Fucking borders are just such a pain in the fucking arse.

I'm not singing for the future I'm not dreaming of the past I'm not talking of the fist time I never think about the last

Now you'll sing a song of liberty for blacks and Paks and Jocks And they'll take you from this dump you're in and stick you in a box Then they'll take you to Cloughprior and shove you in the ground But you'll stick your head back out and shout "We'll have another round!

Now the song is nearly over We may never find out what it means Still there's a light I hold before me You're the measure of my dreams

For its stupid to laugh and its useless to bawl About a rusty tin can and an old hurley ball

When the cold winds come and find you Blowing down from the top of the high rise I'll come and take you back down to Soho Away from all those madmen's eyes

Fuck the Yanks And drink their wives My mind is clear The sky is bright I'm happy as a horse's shite Up came the Bottle of Smoke

So I walked as day was dawning Where small birds sang and leaves were falling Where we once watched the row boats landing On the broad majestic Shannon

But he never threw a fight when the fight was right So they sent him to the war

I've been loving you a long time Down all the years, down all the days And I've cried for all your troubles Smiled at your funny little ways

This town has done us dirty This town has bled us dry We've been here for a long time And we'll be here 'til we die So we'll finish off the leavings Of blood and glue and beer And burn this bloody city down In the summer of the year

There were six men in Birmingham In Guildford there's four That were picked up and tortured And framed by the law And the filth got promotion But they're still doing time For being Irish in the wrong place And at the wrong time In Ireland they'll put you away in the Maze In England they'll keep you for seven long days God help you if ever you're caught on these shores The coppers need someone When they walk through that door You'll be counting years First five, then ten Growing old in a lonely hell Round the yard and a stinking cell From wall to wall, and back again A curse on the judges, the coppers and screws Who tortured the innocent, wrongly accused For the price of promotion And justice to sell May the judged be their judges when they rot down in hell

Hear the rebels' voices calling 'I shall not die, though you bury me!' from 'Aisling

I sat on the floor and watched TV Thanking Christ for the BBC A stupid fucking place to be Down Rain Street

A hungry sound came across the breeze So I gave the walls a talking.

Fucked Up Set up Faced up Jacked up Sitting there in chokey 14 years old No lock on the door But no way out No joking No hoping No nothing Pinned Down.

I've been spat on and shat on And raped and abused.

... there is more to life than there appears to be with the five senses, and logic does not get you anywhere except the atom bomb.

Something that's obvious to a lot of people but it's never said much on the television or anything, that the architects and planners and whatever in London are inhuman to a really disgusting extent.

A devil moon took me through the alley Down by the Kardomah and the Centrale To the mews running through the backstreets Where the Blacks sell fire and sleep The devil moon took me out of Soho Up to Camden where the cold north winds blow Sucked along by a winter shower To stand beside your shining tower

Thanks and praises Thanks to Jesus I bet on the Bottle of Smoke I went through hell And to the races To bet on the Bottle of Smoke The day being clear The sky being bright He came up on the left Like a streak of light Like a drunken fuck On a Saturday night Up came the Bottle of Smoke Twenty fucking five to one Me gambling days are done I bet on a horse called the Bottle of Smoke And my horse won

McCormack and Richard Tauber are singing by the bed There's a glass of punch below your feet and an angel at your head There's devils on each side of you with bottles in their hands You need one more drop of poison and you'll dream of foreign lands When you pissed yourself in Frankfurt and got syph down in Cologne And you heard the rattling death trains as you lay there all alone Frank Ryan brought you whiskey in a brothel in Madrid And you decked some fucking blackshirt who was cursing all the Yids At the sick bed of Cuchulainn we'll kneel and say a prayer And the ghosts are rattling at the door and the Devil's in the chair And in the Euston tavern you screamed it was your shout But they wouldn't give you service so you kicked the windows out They took you out into the street and kicked you in the brains So you walked back in through a bolted door and did it all again At the sick bed of Cuchulainn we'll kneel and say a prayer And the ghosts are rattling at the door and the Devil's in the chair You remember that foul evening when you heard the banshees howl There was lousy drunken bastards singing Billy in the Bowl They took you up to midnight mass and left you in the lurch So you dropped a button in the plate and spewed up in the church Now you'll sing a song of liberty for blacks and Paks and Jocks And they'll take you from this dump you're in and stick you in a box Then they'll take you to Cloughprior and shove you in the ground But you'll stick your head back out and shout "We'll have another round" At the gravesite of Cuchulainn we'll kneel around and pray And God is in his heaven, and Billy's down by the bay "The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn

Billy ran around with a rare old crew And he knew an Arsenal from Tottenham blue We'd be a darn sight better off if we knew Where Billy's bones are resting now Billy saw a copper and he hit him in the knee And he took him down from six to five foot three Then he hit him fair and square in the do-re-mi That copper won't be having any family Hey Billy son where are you now? Don't you know that we need you now? With a rat-tat-tat and the old kowtow Where are Billy's bones resting now? Billy went away with a peace-keeping force 'Cause he liked a bloody good fight, of course Went away in an old khaki van To the banks of the River Jordan Billy saw the Arabs and he had 'em on the run When he got 'em in the range of his sub-machine gun Then he had the Israelis in his sights, went a rat-tat-tat And they ran like shites Hey Billy son where are you now? Don't you know that we need you now? With a rat-tat-tat and the old kowtow Where are Billy's bones resting now? One night Billy had a rare old time, Laughing and singing on the Lebanon line Came back to camp not looking too pretty Never even got to see the holy city Now Billy's out there in the desert sun And his mother cries when the morning comes And there's mothers crying all over this world For their poor dead darling boys and girls Hey Billy son where are you now? Don't you know that we need you now? With a rat-tat-tat and the old kowtow Where are Billy's bones resting now? Have a Billy holiday… Born on a Monday Married on a Tuesday Drunk on a Wednesday Got plugged on a Thursday Sick on a Friday Died on a Saturday Buried on a Sunday. "Billy's Bones

FS: After they threw you out, that must have made things a bit difficult. SM:     I think they all hated my guts by the time they threw me out. But I’d been screaming to get out of the bloody thing for awhile, it had run its course. FS: It ended in Japan didn’t it, I heard you fell out of a … SM:     I fell out of the train. It was three hours after them bringing you around Saki after Saki after Saki. But anyhow I fell from the top step of the train. They’re very safety conscious and everything, but somehow I managed to break my head open on the platform. It just brought matters to a head. FS: It wasn’t moving, the train? SM:     I haven’t got a clue. I couldn’t tell you if it was moving or not. FS: It’s a bit harsh sacking a man for falling off of a train. SM: Well, it wasn’t the first incident of that nature.

In October MacGowan received the Q Merit Award. Held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London, the press called it the most prestigious award ceremony of the year. Sponsored by Greenpeace, Q Magazine picked the winner. Bono did the presentation. Backstage after the program, Shane was reportedly goofing off, dancing around the dressing room balancing the award on his head when somehow he accidentally caught Bono’s hair on fire. It was not the only mishap involved in the event.

The Bible is an extremely violent book. The Bible’s got everything in it that’s bannable. It’s gratuitously violent, gratuitously sexual, totally sexist and racist and it does encourage people to be violent, although it does that because of its philosophy, not because of the descriptions of the battles in it.

His mother told him never to have children till he was rich. He was rich, he made millions with the Pogues, but he says now he's spent it all. 'If you hug money, you clog up the cash flow, know what I mean?

We watched our friends grow up together And we saw them as they fell Some of them fell into Heaven Some of them fell into Hell

If I should fall from grace with God Where no doctor can relieve me If I'm buried 'neath the sod But the angels won't receive me Let me go, boys Let me go, boys Let me go down in the mud Where rivers all run dry

I looked at him, he looked at me, All I could do was hate him. from "A Pair of Brown Eyes

Dehydration Humiliation Degradation Mind castration And the sky is black And the one next to you Keeps thinking that they're having a heart attack. Desolation On medication Nurse nurse nurse Can't sleep easy Nurse nurse nurse Are you fucking with me ECT fucking did a thing on me ECT did a job on me ECT did a job on me ECT did a job on me. Pinned Down Pinned Down.

I can type with me toes Suck stout through me nose And where it's gonna end God only knows

There's a Tesco on the sacred ground Where I pulled her knickers down While Judas took his measly brass And St. Anthony gazed in awe at Christ Down on Rain Street

One, two, three, four, turn your poles Give me a cup of sweet poitin Madness from the mountains crawling When I first saw you, my own Aisling

Wish that they could walk forever On the earth alone and fettered Until they pray for consolation Until they beg for sweet damnation Then I'll come and bring them water Bring them hope, bring them laughter Raise their hopes both sad and sunken Slash them up as they lie there drunken Push them down into the foul mud Until they choke up on their own blood Drag them out before their last breath To take away the mercy of death Mother's eyes are sparking diamonds Still the moon shows no light This rose is withered May God deliver The rake at the gates of hell tonight

Oh the torn up ticket stubs From a hundred thousand mugs Now washed away with dead dreams in the rain And the carparks going up And they're pulling down the pubs And its just another bloody rainy day

And as I sit and talk to you I see your face go white This shadow hanging over me Is no trick of the light The spectre on my back will soon be free The dead have come to claim a debt from thee

Ah sweet city of my dreams Of speed and skill and schemes Like Atlantis you just disappeared from view And the hare upon the wire Has been burnt upon your pyre Like the black dog that once raced Out from trap two

Here a tower shining bright Once stood gleaming in the night Where now There's just the rubble in the hole from "White City

Sometimes I wake up in the morning The ginger lady by my bed Covered in a cloak of silence I hear you talking in my head

Down the dirty old street The Angel of the East is calling And with a trembling hand I open up a can I can hear a baby bawling

Listen to his performance of “Boys of Kilmichael” in London’s Brixton Academy on St. Patrick’s Day, 1994. Then compare that to any other version of the song – Jimmy Crowley, Donie Carroll, or Oliver Kane. There is no comparison. The others are pretty. MacGowan makes you want to go out and kill an Englishman. Isn’t that what rebel songs are supposed to do?

Trevelyan told Parliament, “The judgment of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson. That calamity must not be too much mitigated. The greater evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the Irish people.

You don’t allow yourself the arrogance of self respect.

The best compliment we ever got was that the Pogues were ‘like The Dubliners on-speed.’” Shane MacGowan