Podunkian Music Club

The Pogues-Thousands are Sailing

For St. Patrick’s Day we bring out The Pogues. A wonderfully rowdy group of Irish refugee minstrels who formed up in the King’s Cross area of London, England back in 1982. Hard to pigeonhole as far as a musical style goes, but enjoyable to listen to whatever the direction is they travel.

Through their 25 years, they’ve changed personnel, suffered the usual battles within the band and still managed to put out some vital music, that draws out that unique timbre of music that at times only the Irish seem to be able to pull off.

They’ve been the thing of a cult favourite for many years, the closest they came to a blockbuster album was If I should fall from Grace with God, a collection that featured band founder and regular bad boy Shane MacGowan at his best, the delightful Fairytale of New York, to this day one of the best songs of great anticipation, eventually brought back to earth with great disappointment.

MacGowan eventually would leave the band, a troubled path with his artistic creation resulting in missed shows; inter band squabbles and eventually a formal declaration of expulsion.

But while he was at the forefront of the band, they provided some pretty electric moments for the Celtic punk era of the eighties and early nineties. MacGowan would leave the band in 1991, wandering the musical universe with his new band the Popes for a while. The Pogues in the meantime would rely less on the traditional Irish sounds and more on contemporary pop efforts.

2001 however brought the founder back to his band and for the most part they’ve all been on their best behavior ever since.

Our feature tonight provides MacGowan and the gang at their rowdy best, a St. Patrick’s Day show at a club full of their faithful. They bring along a few special guests to keep the party rolling and certainly show the flag for Irish music. Recorded back in 1988, it features the band as many remember them, with their epic shows of energy and occasional confusion all to an addictive beat.

Thousands are Sailing is our selection for the night, a song that delivers the ghosts of those that left Ireland for what they hoped would be a better life.

The lyrics describe the fates, fames, fortunes and failures that greeted the great Diaspora that exiled themselves to a new land.

Thousands are sailing
Across the western ocean
To a land of opportunity
That some of them will never see
Fortune prevailing
Across the western ocean
Their bellies full
Their spirits free
They'll break the chains of poverty
And they'll dance

Thousands are sailing
Again across the ocean
Where the hand of opportunity
Draws tickets in a lottery
Postcards we're mailing
Of sky-blue skies and oceans
From rooms the daylight never sees
Where lights don't glow on Christmas trees
But we dance to the music
And we dance

We can’t think of a better song to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on the Music club!

Artist-The Pogues
Recording-If I should fall from grace with God