The 500 - #440 - Rum, Sodomy and the Lash

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

Album # 440

Album Title: Rum, Sodomy and the Lash
Artist: The Pogues
Genre: Celtic-Punk, Irish-Folk, Folk-Punk
Released: August, 1985
My age at release: 20
How familiar was I with it before this week: Two songs.
Song I am putting on my Spotify Mix: Sally MacLennane (suggested by friend Karen Snell.)
Great Lyric:
"Now come you gentleman soldier, won't you marry me?"
"Oh no my dearest Polly, such things can never be
For I've a wife already and children I have three
Two wives are allowed in the army, but one's too many for me"
(From the song: The Gentleman Soldier)

While in university, I studied some of the works of Irish poet William Butler (W.B.) Yeats. I'd like to boast that I remember it well, but those recollections were an early victim to the passage of time. In fact, other than the opening line to Sailing to Byzantium, I only really remember the final stanza of Easter 1916, which focused on the week-long rebellion that ultimately led to the three-year Irish-Anglo War of Independence.

Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born. 

The words a terrible beauty stuck with me and describe perfectly my relationship with Irish-Folk music. To state that "I dislike it" isn't fair. I can appreciate its raw, terrible beauty; I just find it a little repetitive. Consequently, I enjoy it in limited quantities or in specific circumstances. For example, a song by The Pogues, The Chieftans or The Corrs in a mixed playlist is delightful. I'll also admit to enjoying a live performance during a Saint Patrick's Day party...but, that might be the green beer talking. Beyond these exceptions, any sustained performance borders on drudgery.

I knew very little about The Pogues before spending time with Rum, Sodomy & The Lash. Ironically, I began my first listen on St. Patrick's Day this week, an event that coincided with my symptom-free, self-isolation from the Coronavirus pandemic. Even the record cover and opening track The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn seemed bizzarely coincidental.

In 1985 the single Dirty Old Town was played regularly on the recently launched MuchMusic cable channel. I'll admit, my friends and I were hardly focused on the music. Instead we were fascinated by singer Shane MacGowan's teeth. Contextually, the mid-80s was dominated by glam-rock-influenced-hair-metal and semi-cartoonish pop music. Musicians were "pretty" - even the men. Most music videos featured some combination of brightly coloured, leather, lace or spandex coupled with sculpted hairstyles and more make-up than a store shelf at Sephora.

Suddenly, somewhere in between the Poison, Prince and Madonna videos was this odd, Celtic-folk-punk band with a lead singer who confirmed well-trodden tropes about bad British teeth - perhaps even informing this oft-quoted scene from Season 4 of The Simpson's.  

I suppose every band needs a hook to gain commercial popularity. There was no denying that MacGowan's chicklets generated popular discourse. In retrospect, I should have been kinder. MacGowan would struggle with addiction, which led to his declining dental health. Fortunately, his gnashers were the focus of a 2015 documentary, A Wreck Reborn, which chronicled "the transformation of the singer’s mouth from a graveyard of long-departed fangs to a showcase for 28 gleaming new dentures on a titanium frame."

As I write this, it is Friday, March 20. I have given Rum, Sodomy & The Lash several listens. I certainly have a new respect for the lyrics the band wrote but, I remain unmoved. I can only take so much of this terrible beauty. 

Things I learned:

• The band took it's name from "Pogue Mahone" – the anglicisation of the Irish Gaelic póg mo thóin, meaning "kiss my arse".
• The album takes its title from a quote attributed to Winston Churchill: "Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash."
• Pogues' drummer "Andrew Ranken" suggested the title to his bandmates because, "it seemed to sum up life in our band."
• The cover artwork painted by Peter Mennim is based on a Romantic-era work by Theodore Gericault called The Raft of Medusa. However, the band members' faces replace those originally depicted on the raft. Mennim was also responsible for the book jacket to Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the movie poster for The Crow.
• The album was produced by Elvis Costello who was dating and would marry Pogue's bassist and singer Cait (pronounced Cott) O'Riordan.