Shane MacGowan, Legendary And Beloved Frontman For The Pogues, Dies At 65

Frans Schellekens. Getty Images.

Shane MacGowan, the rascally, brilliant, and seminal songwriter/musician who fronted the Irish band The Pogues, died at 65 after a series of health issues in recent years. He most recently battled encephalitis.

The music industry has had no shortage of characters since a needle was first put to wax. But there was nobody quite like Shane MacGowan nor will there ever be again. After an upbringing that had him tasting Guinness at five and reading James Joyce a few years later, MacGowan started or was part of a handful of bands before he turned 20. But a serendipitous meeting with Spider Stacy in the hopper at a 1977 Ramones show would ultimately set him on his groundbreaking, roller coaster career.

The pair formed a band that eventually morphed into an iconic Celtic punk outfit that created an aggressively Irish sound with songs that evoked whiskey, The Troubles, and growing up on the Olde Sod. It wasn't long before The Pogues hit paydirt. And a big reason was MacGowan`s poetic lyricism that belied his booze and drug-drenched reality.

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Their second and third albums, "Rum Sodomy & the Lash" and "If I Should Fall From Grace With God", established the Hibernian troupe as a new and unique force on the music scene. But after a blast of success, MacGowan's fondness for the drink and whatever else would derail his ascending career while simultaneously burnishing his irascible legend. By 1991, his band mates asked him to leave. A few years later, The band pulled the plug on itself.

Early in the 2000s, The Pogues would reunite and play a series of sold-out gigs over the next several years. And then that was it for the groundbreaking band. As for its sublime, mercurial lyricist, MacGowan made scant public appearances while dealing with various health woes. But he never stopped being the impish menace that introduced the world to a new sound that paired Irish and rock music, through his voice and his pen. There could never be another Shane MacGowan because if God didn't break the mold, then surely MacGowan did.

May the road rise up to meet him.