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Peace and Love

Certain Songs #1601: The Pogues – “Lorelei”

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Album: Peace and Love
Year: 1989

As you’ve probably figured out, most of my favorite late-period Pogues songs are the ones where they broke formula and tried something different from the expected Irish Folk-Punk that they made their original mark with, and “Lorelei” might be the biggest break of all, while still having roots in things they’d previously done.

So, like “Thousands Are Sailing,” it was written guitarist Phil Chevron. Like “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah,” it featured a prominent electric guitar, and like the holy “Fairytale of New York,” it featured Kirsty MacColl.

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Certain Songs #1600: The Pogues – “Down All The Days”

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Album: Peace and Love
Year: 1989

. . .

Welcome to my favorite Pogues song. And, honestly, one of those songs I love so much, it almost makes me cry sometimes. Not because it’s sad, but because — and because I don’t exactly know how, I don’t know exactly why — “Down All The Days” has a direct hotwire to my soul.

And, to me at least, it’s a song that sounds like no other song I’ve ever heard in my life. The trick of latter-day Pogues — the reason that their last three albums just floored me — was that they used the traditional Irish instruments to make non-Irish music. And when it clicked, like on the wistfully psychedelic “Down All The Days,” it was utterly transcendent.

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Certain Songs #1599: The Pogues – “White City”

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Album: Peace and Love
Year: 1989

. . .

I know that the conventional wisdom was that the Pogues probably peaked out with If I Should Fall From Grace With God or Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, I loved 1989’s Peace and Love nearly as much as the former and more than the latter.

And in fact, I loved Peace and Love so much that back in 1989, it was my favorite album of 1989, over such worthies as Freedom, Mekons Rock ‘n’ Roll, New York, The Stone Roses & Full Moon Fever, all of which I’d probably rate over it now.

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