Finding Shane MacGowan

For over 40 years the press and the public have kept an almost obsessive watch over Shane MacGowan, drawn as much by his drinking, breakdowns, health scares and teeth as by his music.

Time and again authors, and by extension audiences, have tried to disassemble the enigmatic Pogues frontman, to separate the man from the myth and the magician from the maniac. None though have managed to get as close, nowhere near in fact, as Richard Balls in his new book ‘A Furious Devotion: The Authorised Story of Shane MacGowan’.

Written with the full co-operation of MacGowan and his wife Victoria, Balls charts new territory through the singer and songwriter’s early life, his rise to fabled rock icon and his death defying spiral into drink, drugs and mayhem.

“First and foremost I’m a fan of Shane and of The Pogues,” says Balls of how the book came about.

“I interviewed Shane for my previous book ‘Be Stiff’ which chronicles the mad history of Stiff Records and which was a great amount of fun. That interview was done in London and it was facilitated by a guy called Paul Ronan who is a long-time friend of Shane’s. I stayed in touch with Paul and some time later I thought that for my next book I would love to write about Shane because I had a hunch there was a lot more about him that had never come into the public domain and that he was very different to the way he had been portrayed, almost cartoon-like, in the media over the years.”

INTERVIEWS

Penned over almost four years, A Furious Devotion is an immense body of work containing interviews with more than 60 people – family members, friends, ex-lovers, band mates – many of whom have agreed to go on the record for the first time. Balls even managed to track down Tom Simpson, a former schoolteacher of MacGowan’s who spotted his intellectual abilities and writing talents at a young age.

“I felt it was almost as important what this book wasn’t going to be, it wasn’t going to be another run-through of The Pogues because I felt that had already been done,” says Balls.

“I didn’t feel I could add any value by doing another Pogues book but what I did feel was that Shane’s childhood, his early days, had never been properly explored and that there were a lot of myths around this – where he was born, where he was raised.

“What I wanted to achieve was a book that really got to grips with some of these myths and try to pull back the curtain and have a look at a lot of parts of his life that had never been properly explored.”

To drill down into MacGowan’s earliest days Balls visited The Commons, the remote Tipperary cottage where Shane first encountered the music that would make him a star. There he spoke to aunts and cousins who all remember fondly the ‘little man’.

‘This is the place Shane still calls home and where, in the snug bosom of his family, he first sang and played Irish music,’ says his sister Siobhan.

CHILDHOOD HOME

In less glowing terms Shane talks about his other childhood home in Tunbridge Wells, England.

‘Tunbridge Wells is a grotty, London overspill town,’ is how he describes it.

It was during hours and days spent in the Dublin apartment that MacGowan shares with his wife that Richard Balls was able to elicit such snarling observations.

But he was also struck by a Shane that not many have ever got to encounter.

“I found him quite gentle, quite a sensitive soul and I think that is one of the things that comes out in the book, a lot of his friends have said how sensitive he is.

“On the one hand you have this image of this kind of hell-raising lunatic when actually the reality is someone who is quite quiet, quite shy, was shy as a child and actually has carried that into adulthood.

“As a songwriter, I think he is one of the greatest of his generation. His songs are very human, very raw and visceral which is unusual because not many people write in that way. But Shane is a humanitarian, he cares about other people, he is a great friend to a lot of people and he is a really sincere man. He isn’t interested in celebrity and fame and I found him a really genuine and sincere person.”

Where, then, does the violence that flows freely through the work of The Pogues come from? The ‘arms and legs of other men’ that were scattered all around in MacGowan’s A Pair of Brown Eyes?

“When you are doing something like this you find there are threads that you start to pull at and I found one was violence,” says the author.

“The Pogues’ lyrics are full of violence and war and conflict and one of the things I found from talking to people was that when he was a child Shane was fascinated by the news and stuff like the Black Panther Movement, the Vietnam war and obviously The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the IRA bombing campaign in the UK.

“He took that very much to heart. If someone else gets hurt or someone is in pain, he takes that on. He’s a very empathetic person.”

Explored in greater detail than ever before is MacGowan’s descent into LSD and alcohol-driven madness. A Furious Devotion hears the genuine concerns band members and management had on more than one occasion that he would die in front of them.

“Parts of the book are very dark and some people might not want to particularly see those parts. But I think as a biographer you have to approach it in a diligent way and show all aspects of someone’s life. You are cheating people, and the subject as well, if you just whitewash those things out of the story.”

Last word

In A Furious Devotion Richard Balls has achieved what he set out to do – put the record straight on the man responsible for some of the most beautiful songs ever written. And included in that is an insight into the Shane of today, the hellraiser diluted by excess into a man old before his time. Balls reveals that MacGowan, who turns 64 on Christmas Day, is no longer able to walk or fend for himself.

‘For almost five years he has not walked. His days are spent in an armchair, his eyes glued to his beloved television. Carers get him in and out of bed,’ writes the author.

The prospect then of a comeback, one more trip along the Broad Majestic Shannon or a Summer in Siam, seems more than unlikely.

“I think this is the last word on him,” says the writer.

“I interviewed over 60 people, his father, his sister, members of his family who had never been spoken before, ex-girlfriends, band members.

“I think the only way to try to understand who a person is… is to talk to the people who know them best. And hopefully that is one of the strengths of this book, it is based on observations of people who really know him.”

Talented, troubled, shy, complex – Richard Balls has managed to get as close to finding out who Shane MacGowan is as anyone ever will.

“I think the enduring appeal of Shane is his songs, his songs really resonate with people.

“Shane is a humanitarian and a very empathetic person and songs like A Pair of Brown Eyes, Fairytale of New York, Rainy Night in Soho, Broad Majestic Shannon are really beautiful songs. They had a timeless feel about them when they were released and I still think they do.

“And undoubtedly one of the other things that appeals to people is his image as one of the last great rock and rollers. Shane is a rock and roller and he has embodied that kind of rebellious rock and roll spirit forever. There aren’t many of those left.”

• ‘A Furious Devotion: The Authorised Story of Shane MacGowan’ by Richard Balls is out now, published by Omnibus Press.