Doing a 180: Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with The Pogues

When it comes to celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, a few things should always be constants: green beer (unless you’re an alcoholic), corned beef and cabbage (unless you’re a vegan, in which case hold the corned beef), and The Pogues. Okay, if you prefer your music less chaotic and your vocals more comprehensible, then perhaps Shane MacGowan and the gang aren’t your cup of tea, but for those of you who’ve come to appreciate the merits of falling from grace with God, then put on your finest greenery and go pick up our new vinyl reissues of the Pogues’ back catalog.

Actually, let’s clarify that: it’s the Shane MacGowan era of the Pogues’ back catalog that’s gotten the 180-gram vinyl treatment. This should not, however, be taken as any sort of dismissal of 1993’s Waiting for Herb or 1996’s Pogue Mahone, both of which are just fine, if perhaps a bit easier to digest than most of the band’s Shane-centric stuff. (It just seems inherently wrong for a Pogues song to go down smoothly, you know?)

So what’s available? Glad you asked: there’s Red Roses for Me, the Poguetry in Motion EP, If I Should Fall from Grace with God, and Hell’s Ditch. In other words, aside from the previously released Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, the band’s full-length studio output from 1984 through 1990. That’s a whole lotta Pogues, to be sure, but it’s also a whole lot of great music that now sounds better than ever. If you’ve got a more musically appropriate way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, we’re all ears, but at the very least, you can’t say we didn’t suggest a perfectly good purchase.