If I Should Fall From Grace With God

Certain Songs #1597: The Pogues – “Fiesta”

July 31, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Year: 1988

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As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, several of The Pogues spent some time in Almeria, Spain filming Alex Cox’s riotous Straight to Hell. As you can imagine, it was a party, the spirit of which was fully caught in one of my very favorite Pogues songs, the utterly hilarious “Fiesta.”

Co-written with banjo player Jem Finer, who based it on a melody he kept hearing at various food stalls that stuck in his head, “Fiesta” is pure and utter nonsense lyrically, and an ridiculous stew of disparate elements musically. That it works at all is a tribute to the gonzo musicianship of The Pogues, who grab hold of the tune from the start and hang on for dear life.

Certain Songs #1596: The Pogues – “Thousands Are Sailing”

July 30, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Year: 1988

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The story goes that Phillip Chevron was a bit apprehensive to bring “Thousands Are Sailing” to the Pogues. In retrospect, that seems a bit strange since, unless you were paying attention, it was virtually indistinguishable from a Shane MacGowan lyric, both in overall subject matter (Irish emigration) and telling details (Manhattan, Brendan Behan).

And of course one of the things about the Pogues was — in the grand folk tradition — they didn’t really seem to care where a song came from: a great song was a great song. So “Thousands Are Sailing” became the first great Pogues song written by someone else in the band other than MacGowan.

Certain Songs #1595: The Pogues – “If I Should Fall From Grace With God”

July 29, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Year: 1988

While it was over two years after Rum, Sodomy & The Lash before The Pogues released another full-length album, it wasn’t like they weren’t busy.

In early 1986, they released the Poguetry in Motion EP, which was also produced by Elvis Costello, who would soon run off with their bass player, Cait O’Riordian, which featured “Body of an American,” which some of you will recognize as “that song in The Wire they keep playing at the wakes for cops.”

Certain Songs #739: The Pogues – “Fairytale of New York”

December 24, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Year: 1987

I’m sure that when I bought If I Should Fall From Grace With God I knew that “Fairytale of New York” had been a huge hit single in the U.K., though that’s not the reason I bought the album. I bought it because it was the new Pogues album, and “Fairytale of New York” was just one of several songs I loved on it.

And one thing’s for sure: I really didn’t think of “Fairytale of New York” as a Christmas song, but rather just another of Shane MacGowan’s tales of scumbags and maggots which just happened to be set on Christmas Eve. In the drunk tank.