Red Roses for Me [Original recording remastered]

Pogues | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 19, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 1984
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Rhino
• ASIN: B000H8SFM0
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,457 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #4 in Music > World Music > Celtic > Rock
  • #23 in Music > Alternative Rock > Hardcore & Punk > Punk
  • #40 in Music > Folk > Traditional Folk

Track Listings

1. Transmetropolitan

2. The Battle of Brisbane

3. The Auld Triangle

4. Waxie's Dargle

5. Boys from the County Hell

6. Sea Shanty

7. Dark Streets of London

8. Streams of Whiskey

9. Poor Paddy

10. Dingle Regatta

11. Greenland Whale Fisheries

12. Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go

13. Kitty

14. The Leaving of Liverpool [*]

15. Muirshin Durkin [*]

16. Repeal of the Licensing Laws [*]

17. And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda [*]

18. Whiskey You're the Devil [*]

19. The Wild Rover [*]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'll have a pint with you sir!, November 25, 2006

By 

Poor Napoleon (TX United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Red Roses for Me (Audio CD)

Red Roses for Me was the first Pogues album I bought. It was a used import CD and the quality was horrible. The songs were great, but the sound on the album left much to be desired, probably due to sourcing from a poor master. So for years, I was waiting for a remastered version of this excellent album. Here, Rhino delivers.


This album can now be heard in all its glory. It's still amazing to here Shane Macgowan's tracks sit beautifully among traditional Irish fare. Yet MacGowan has punk sensibilities peaking into his tracks, notably on Boys From the County Hell. It's here that we get to see how good a songwriter Shane can be on the Dark Streets of London, where's he shows some of the emotional depth he's capable of. Others might be surprised to find the lovely original Streams of Whiskey, which makes a great pub song.

But the band comes together to create a great welcoming sound that both pays tribute to Irish music while breathing new life into traditional classics. Waxie's Dargle shows how much fun the band can have, which sounds like two Irish lads having a few pints, as they describe in the song. It's a lot of fun.

The bonus on this reissues is of course the quality. There are also a handful of extra tracks. The Pogues shine on a few more traditional songs while instroducing us to their rendition of Eric Bogle's And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda. This version is good, but pales in comparrison to the powerful version on Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash.

There are no misses on this album. A lot of people feel the Pogues magic wasn't fully realized until their followup album, but this album has the band sounding fresh and raw. Hearing this for the first time was a lot of magic for me as this is where I disocvered the Pogues, so I maybe a little biased, but this is close to their best.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FIVE KILLER TUNES WORTH THE PRICE OF THE ALBUM; A BLESSING FROM IRISH HEAVEN, January 3, 2007

By 

C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Red Roses for Me (Audio CD)

I moved from one double wide to another one across the street and never got to opening all of my literature boxes, until late at night a wee leprachaun, no wait, it was the voice of Shane MacGowan or whatever croaking about the Leaving of Liverpool and forcing me to open up all these boxes and put everything away and find me once again to hold you in your lonesome exile.

Not only do you get two great old tunes made big by Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers, here done rowdy like they ought, but you get That Auld Triangle, about back when the British Empire controlled their surplus Irish colonial population under the blessing of that devil Malthus by stealing all of their food and claiming famine (there was plenty of food in Ireland at that time all going to London), or transporting everyone to Australia and the penal colonies, or jailing all the men for ridiculous charges like wearing green or refusing to get evicted from their own lands and homes as if they were Palestinians.

But do not get me started. Listen over and over to the Auld Triangle.
And cheer up with the Leaving of Liverpool, especially that wild shout after One More Time is called. This is music, man. Hear it now.

And of course Down underground deserves to be heard a few times, although the creepy sound effects grow wearisome.

And then play the Clancy Brother songs and remember the tears of your old dad. I just wish A Parting Glass was on this collection so I didn't have to pull out the other disk! I guess that's what some folks use their iPod for, but hey . . .

A great comfort in exile or any time. What else has been recorded this late; what else is there to listen to? Def Leperd? Dear god!

That Auld Triangle is calling me even now.

I met Spider while filming ALex Cox's Walker in NIcaragua twenty years ago, and did not realize then who he was. Otherwise I'd have begged him to play that Triangle on the tin whistle he ever carried with him, and one which he shines so clearly and truly on this album.

By the way, the title comes from Dublin playwright Sean O'Casey. Check him out, too.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Like A Breath of Ale-Soaked Air, November 3, 2006

By 

Thomas D. Ryan "American Hit Network" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Red Roses for Me (Audio CD)

Here is one very good reason for the re-issue program that is inundating music fans. Every now and then, an album reappears that you missed the first time around, and might otherwise have been unlikely to purchase. I'm a Pogues fan, but I incorrectly assumed that I already owned their best stuff. Call it ignorance, but I didn't even know that "Red Roses for Me" existed. This re-issue from Rhino Records has solved that problem and I'm thankful for it, but I sure do wish I heard this album when it was released. What a breath of fresh air this must have been! Imagine Irish punks readdressing the traditional folk music of their country by writing a new batch of their own, at a time when processed keyboards and canned rhythms ruled the airwaves. Musically, the year 1984 lived up to its apocalyptic implications, but the Pogues provided an escape from the "Safety Dance" of that awful time.
Dig through your `active' collection and find something that you bought in 1984.....I'll wait right here.........still waiting..........I bet you can't find anything, can you? So much music from the mid-`80s has grown old and outdated. Echo-laced production and noise-gated drums poison so much music from that era, but "Red Roses for Me" could have been released yesterday. It captures the Pogues as a fresh-faced bunch of drunkards, with a swagger to match their energetic performances. You can take a punk out of Ireland but you can't Ireland out of the punk, so these songs figuratively reek like an Irish pub on Saturday night. Shane MacGowan spits out his words with the flourish of a drunken uncle at a wedding, even when his compositions stand on wobbly legs. "Streams of Whiskey," "Poor Paddy" and "Transmetropolitan" are meant for a sing-along bash, with pints spilling because you can't stand still. It may be a waste of ale, but "Red Roses for Me" is definitely not a waste of cash. The six bonus tracks are like getting a free round, too. A- Tom Ryan