Customer Reviews

If I Should Fall From Grace With God

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When they first appeared, people referred to the Pogues as an 'Irish punk' outfit. Since then I've heard them recategorized half a dozen times. But nomenclature aside, there's no disputing what the Pogues brought to music in the eighties and nineties.

Few artists communicate as effectively as Shane MacGowan, few voices in music are as immediately recognizeable as his. His lyrical gifts outpace even our most prolific songwriters. When MacGowan writes for himself, he ultimately writes for all of us.

I'm not one of those hyphenated Americans that need go back eight generations for an identity, but when I hear this music, it calls to something inside of me, something I suspect not even Ellis island can fully erase.

A completely flawless album from the band that invented "Irish/rock/punk/folk," or whatever you want to call them. None of those labels really apply. The Pogues should really be called an Irish soul band. This album was the pinnacle of Shane MacGowan's lyrical power, which led Bono to say, "I don't think anyone writes better songs than Shane." From the snarling rage of the opening track, to the heartbreaking melody of Fairytale of New York, to the understated beauty of The Broad Majestic Shannon, this is an album that's hard to stop listening to.

It's hard to judge between the first three albums the Pogues released as they are all sublime in their own way but this, their slickest and most studio produced album, is a stunner.
Every track a winner and the legendary and sorely missed Kirsty McColl duets with Shane MacGowan on the haunting and jaggedly truthful love story "Fairytale of New York."
Shane Macgowan again shows he is adept at both the hard-driving irish rants and also the heart-breaking ballads like "Broad Majestic Shannon" and "Lullaby of London."

Still their best album.
Good bonus tracks!
These guys rock harder at age 50 than I've ever rocked in my life.

I started with "Red Roses For Me" as my first Pogues album. Mistake (which is not to say it's a bad album). I would say start with this one or "Rum, Sodomy & The Lash." At any rate, the Pogues are definitely worth hearing, and this album is definitely one you should have if you dig them.

Wonderful remastering job by Rhino.
The bonus cuts are all worthy, no fillers here !
All the reissues have lyrics included, except for the bonus cuts.

If you don't know the Pogues, they sound like a traditional Irish band, but with a rock n roll beat & streetwise attitude. The songs are mostly dark, about life, death, getting drunk and everything in between.
What a band! Whether a slow & moody ballad or a raving party tune, the Pogues are premier musicians. This cd & Hell's Ditch are my faves, but
they are all worth getting.

The world is better place since "If I should Fall from the Grace With God" has been re-mastered and re-issued -- this is the Pogues at their roarin' best! In fact, with this re-issue you won't care if you've fallen and can't get back up-- you'll be havin' too much fun listenin' to this classic disc that has been out of circulation and missing too long on the out print lists. Fall out with this one for best of class good sounds!

This cd rocks. It is upbeat, it is fun, it is heartfelt, you can tap your feet to it..... I love it, my husband loves it, my kids love it. It is the best in the van on road trips and I can't wait to buy another one of their cd's.

Shane MacGowan has said that the Pogues "peaked" with If I Should Fall from Grace with God. That would be a hard point to argue against. The album is an intoxicating blend of musical styles. It manages to maintain a sense of the band's Irish roots while incorporating Mideast sounds, jazz, and of course rock and roll into its eclectic mix. Of the album's eleven non-traditional tracks, MacGowan wrote or co-wrote nine of them.
With an album as strong as If I Should Fall from Grace with God it is difficult, if not foolhardy, to try to single out a single track as the record's highlight. That said, for my money, "The Broad Majestic Shannon" is a contender. MacGowan has said that he wrote the song for fellow Tipperarian Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem. Over two decades later, after Liam's death in 2009, each night in concert he dedicated the song to Clancy and Makem. The simple beauty of the lyrics earned the song a place in a 2005 anthology called "The Best of Popular Irish Poetry." The song is a sentimental reminisce of County Tipperary as MacGowan remembered it from his childhood.
If the album has a better track than "The Broad Majestic Shannon," surely it is "Fairytale of New York." MacGowan shared writer's credits with Jem Finer. It's about an Irish immigrant couple in the Big Apple. It is a Christmas song like no other. The husband, past his prime, spends Christmas Eve in the drunk tank. His wife is apparently a junky hooked up to an intravenous line in a hospital bed. Obviously, they've seen better times. The husband is optimistic for their future, but the wife, who accuses him of stealing her youthful dreams, is having none of it. At one point she chastises him with the classic line, "You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot. Happy Christmas your arse, I pray God it's our last." It's a Christmas story only Shane MacGowan could tell.
"The Broad Majestic Shannon" and "Fairytale of New York" are enough to make If I Should Fall from Grace with God a classic album, but there is more. Much more. "Lullaby of London," "Turkish Song of the Damned," and the title cut are all strong enough tracks to remain in the Pogues' live set list more than two decades after their release. "Lullaby of London" is a slow, sad, beautiful song evoking images of the town MacGowan loves to hate so well. "Turkish Song of the Damned" (co-written by Finer) and "If I Should Fall from Grace with God" burst with visions of death and religion. The former is reminiscent of 19th Century English poet Samuel Taylor Cooleridge's opium-fueled epic "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." The music has an infectious Mideastern feel. The later brings MacGowan's nationalist passion forward with the lines "This land was always ours, was the proud land of our fathers. It belongs to us and them, not to any others." Certainly not to the British.
Republican sentiments are even more up front in one of the album's traditional cuts, "Medley." The piece is a merger of three songs, "The Recruiting Sergeant," "Rocky Road to Dublin," and "Galway Races." MacGowan shares the vocals with Terry Woods in "The Recruiting Sergeant" portion of the track. It's about British attempts to recruit Irishmen to fight with England in World War I. The would-be recruits decline saying, "There's fighting in Dublin to be done," a reference to the 1916 Easter Rising that kicked off the Irish revolution against the British. That reference is a mild dose of anti-British sentiment compared to the album's other MacGowan-Woods collaboration, "Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six." It's technically a medley as well. "Streets of Sorrow," written and sung by Woods, is a soft, reflective piece about the sorrow, pain, and death caused by terrorism in the streets, presumably the streets of Belfast. It is a perfect lead in to MacGowan's more virulent "Birmingham Six," a song about six Irishmen wrongly convicted of bombing two English pubs. MacGowan's lyrics pull no punches. He calls the British prosecutors "filth," accusing them of framing and torturing the convicted "for being Irish in the wrong place and at the wrong time." For good measure he refers to the British authorities as "whores of the empire" and hopes they will "rot down in hell."
If I Should Fall from Grace with God also contains the expected allotment of Pogues' rave-ups. "Bottle of Smoke" and "Fiesta," like so many of the album's numbers remain staples of the band's live set more than two decades later. "Bottle of Smoke" reflects the Irish passion for horse racing. A far cry from "Old Stewball," the steed in "Bottle of Smoke" comes in at "Twenty f**king five to one" causing the "Priests and maidens, drunk as pagans" to celebrate. "Fiesta," co-written by Finer, was inspired by the fiesta that took place outside the Pogues' hotel while they were filming "Straight to Hell" in Spain. Over the years it has become a live showstopper, the last song of the night, whipping the crowd into a frenzy as a machine showers them with colorful confetti. MacGowan has called "Sit Down by the Fire," another full speed ahead number, "a typical Irish bedtime story." If that's true, nightmares must be rampant in Ireland. The lyrics tell of creeping things in the night suggesting that "if ever you see them pretend that you're dead, or they'll bite off your head. They'll rip out your liver and dance on your neck."
The album also contains the hands down best non-MacGowan Pogues' composition in the band's repertoire. Phil Chevron's "Thousands Are Sailing" is absolutely brilliant. The perfect song of Irish emigration to America, it manages to include all the expected immigrant references without ever sounding cliched. MacGowan's vocal is the perfect vehicle for bringing Chevron's lyrics to life.
If you only own one Pogues album (a serious mistake!), make it this one.
Rake at the Gates of Hell: Shane MacGowan in Context

Bought this album after watching the Subaru commercial featuring the title song. Was pleasantly surprised as the rest of the album is just as good. Still haven't tired of listening to it.