I first met Shane in 1989 when the music paper NME thought it would be a good idea to bring us two together alongside Mark E Smith from the Fall for a so-called “summit meeting”. I was excited because I was a fan, completely in awe of Shane’s songwriting. Unfortunately, it was my first day out of rehab, and it probably wasn’t the greatest idea to spend the day with two people who were not known for their moderation. It was pure mayhem from the outset. Not the most auspicious start to a friendship, but Shane and I did become close friends soon afterwards.
When we initially started to hang out, we often went out to bars and clubs. It was a little difficult, because I’d temporarily stopped taking drugs and drinking, but we liked each other’s company. I don’t think he was used to being around someone who didn’t drink. He essentially didn’t trust anyone who wasn’t completely shit-faced. At some point, when I eventually started drinking again, we met in a bar and he asked me what I wanted. I ordered a double vodka and his eyes just lit up. It was like he was a little kid and it was Christmas Day. And that was that. We spent the next years going out, fucking around, getting wasted.
Sometimes I’d call round his flat in King’s Cross and he’d be watching Scarface or one of those violent Kitano cop thrillers. I remember being concerned that he wasn’t writing songs. Once, when I asked him about it, he crawled across the floor and started rooting in the pile of rubbish until he found a scrap of paper. It was the lyrics to a song called St John of Gods. A beautiful title. Beautiful words. To me, his songs were such precious things, deep works of art, really, but he didn’t treat them like that. While I laboured away at my desk, day after day, to produce what I could, Shane’s words were delivered to him on a beer tray with a whiskey chaser.
What I really envied about Shane’s lyric writing was that he was doing something extraordinary with the classic songwriting form. His way of writing was steeped in the tradition of Irish balladry. It was in no way modern, whereas my songs, back then, were more of their time: darker and fractured and experimental. There was little compassion in them. No true understanding of the “ordinary”. I don’t think I could have written a lyric like “The wind goes right through you/ It’s no place for the old” [from Fairytale of New York]. It speaks volumes. You can feel the wind and the ice in the air but also the sense of learned empathy and deep compassion Shane had for people.
I loved his voice, too. It was the perfect vehicle for his chaotic, poetic soul. And I loved the way he comported himself when he was singing live. There was a nonchalance about it. I remember watching the Pogues do a soundcheck somewhere at a festival in France. He just walked up to the mic and sang A Pair of Brown Eyes with his hands shoved in his pockets, this gorgeous, racked voice coming out of him like he was a cypher for the angels. It was a rare privilege to witness something like that.
Shane saw it as a solemn duty to be permanently fucked up and, for most of his life, he was happy to be the way he was. I never heard him complain about having a hangover or feeling bad. He just got on with it. He was never regretful. And I respected that about him, but sometimes it was difficult. There were times when he was so reduced he was barely functioning and, as a friend, that was heartbreaking to see. There’s a myth that there are these “special” people, who do everything to excess and somehow carry on being creative, but it’s just not true. It was sad to see Shane lose his extraordinary gifts and become so diminished over time, but that doesn’t stop you loving someone.
At the end of the day, though, it is his genius we should remember rather than all the other stuff. He wrote a bunch of songs that are truly great. That’s a hell of a lot more than most songwriters manage. His best lyrics have a truly lived-in nature to them. His beautiful soul is baked in to every word, every phrase of A Rainy Night in Soho or The Old Main Drag. They are rooted in earned experience. Those profoundly beautiful words coming out of such a broken soul. He had something that we lesser writers have to work hard to even get close to. An effortless, God-given talent.
When my friendship with him began, it was based on a deep admiration for his songwriting. I was a fan, pure and simple, and I will always be that. But the enduring nature of our relationship grew out of a great love for the man himself. Shane was not like other people. Regardless of what condition he was in, he had a goodness about him and a depth of feeling about the poetic nature of our human condition that was immeasurable. There was a truth to him, a clarity of soul that was of the purest kind. You can’t hide something like that. The whole world could see it, which is why he was so deeply loved by so many.
