Victoria Mary Clarke on getting Bruce Springsteen involved in an album of Shane MacGowan songs

Threaded through MacGowan's story is a life of wild notoriety, chaos and classic songs such as ‘Fairytale of New York’. 

His hit with The Pogues is as much part of Christmas as turkey with all the trimmings, but perhaps in the aftermath of his death, it's time to shift the focus to other areas.

Clarke wrote an entertaining book, A Drink With Shane MacGowan, and subsequently chronicled further episodes of his life for a second instalment. 

"We've done a lot more recording of conversations which I've never published so I definitely will," she confirms.

Reflecting on her late husband’s reputation as a hard drinker, she explains that aspects of his public persona were romanticised. 

"I don't think Shane was an alcoholic, he said he wasn't and I believed him,” says Clarke. “He could live without it and was perfectly happy in the last year of his life, he said he didn't miss it but there were times when he was dependent on it."

Despite an uncompromising relationship with alcohol and drugs which became part of the mythology around MacGowan, his death was still unexpected. 

That final year allowed another side of his character to flourish. "The last year was very beautiful," she says. 

"He was very into peace, he prayed for people and was very concerned with the world. A softer side of him was very evident – ‘graceful’ is the word I would use."

Having met MacGowan for various interviews over the years, his strong faith would often enter the conversation. On one occasion he'd just watched Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and was mesmerised.

"He was deeply spiritual and more so than most priests," suggests Clarke. "When Shane ate the Eucharist he felt that buzz from communion. I've talked to many priests and they don't feel that ecstatic buzz… but Shane did.

“He had a very pure and innocent approach. He believed in Jesus and Mary and all the saints. He wasn't exclusive, he was interested in the Tao, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism and the core values that were about loving people, respecting and caring for each other."

In May last year MacGowan was visited by Bruce Springsteen in Dublin. After MacGowan's death, Springsteen wrote: "I don’t know about the rest of us, but they’ll be singing Shane’s songs 100 years from now." 

Clarke reflects, "I'd met Springsteen before, he's very down to earth and a fan of Shane. I think he's right, Shane wrote in a traditional style, it's proven that the Irish traditional songs like Danny Boy carry on, with rock n' roll nobody knows."

Hopefully, by next Christmas, a collection of songs will be recorded by several singers, songwriters and luminaries capable of interpreting MacGowan's unreleased work. 

Both Springsteen and Dylan counted him among their favourite writers, and his close friend Nick Cave is also expected to appear.

"We are working with some great people,” says Clarke. “Springsteen will be on it. I have a lot of unpublished stuff. Shane wrote a lot of songs and he also recorded about 20 tracks with the Cronin brothers [Johnny and Mick], we're also going to put that out."

MacGowan’s widow is also hoping to get Bono involved in the record. "Shane and I both lived in Bono's house for a while. Shane always really loved Bono, he looked at him as a kid brother kind of thing and they had great times and very deep religious and spiritual conversations."

Born in Dublin, Clarke moved with her family to West Cork at the age of nine. She first saw MacGowan in a music magazine as a face on the punk scene. One theory is that Shane had to live up to his early untamed character Shane O'Hooligan.

"He'd made up his mind to be a face, to be famous and successful. He was already it, you don't have to live up to something if you are intrinsically that, he was expressing himself doing what he wanted.” 

MacGowan adopted, as he suggested "paddy chic" that included a black two-piece suit and high open neck shirt. He once told me, "Democracy doesn't work in bands". 

As bandleader he was able to dictate completely how a song should go by the time The Pogues released their debut Red Roses For Me in 1984 recently re-released for its 40th anniversary.

The first single ‘Dark Streets of London’ was a manifesto with lyrics that jump off the page and create an atmosphere that summons penniless strugglers in betting shops and pubs from another time.

“And now the winter comes down, I can't stand the chill That comes to the streets around Christmas time I'm buggered to damnation and I haven't got a penny To wander the dark streets of London” Sometimes, the story of MacGowan overlooks how dedicated he was to his craft and his feelings about Irish cultural traditions being lost. He told me: "People in Ireland don't know who John McCormack was… you have to broadcast culture to people nowadays. The culture is not being passed down anymore because of the urbanisation of things."

At the same time, he wasn't a music snob, and suggested Brendan Shine was as relevant as Brendan Behan. "He hated snobs, celebrity culture and people who thought they were better," says Clarke.

Literary heroes such as Behan and American Beat Generation writer William Burroughs impacted him as much as his idyllic Irish childhood. Like them, a conformist life was anathema.

"It comes with the territory,” says Clarke. “If you want to live that way, there are lots of drug dealers and people in that scene, it's going to be dark and messy. That's what he wanted to do and what he wanted to write about as well."

While members of The Pogues maintain it was that lifestyle that led to MacGowan's exit in 1991, he was adamant their direction away from Irish music led him to form subsequent band The Popes. The Snake (1994) remains one of MacGowan’s finest long-players but is somewhat neglected.

At the time London-based MacGowan was a regular in Filthy MacNasty’s pub near Clerkenwell, where he could be found asleep at the bar by a dim lamplight, his fingers stained nicotine yellow.

The epitome of a living legend, his rarified company attracted figures such as Johnny Depp, Gerry Adams and Kate Moss to visit. 

"The Snake was Shane going solo and it was difficult,” recalls Clarke. "He didn't want to keep going with what they [The Pogues] were doing so it was something new to do it by himself. But he was joyful making that record and excited to be in charge. Everything was very understated at that time, he didn't want to be working for the machine by doing a lot of publicity and organised tours. He was having too much of a good time to think about the business so he didn't really promote it.”

Often for artists of MacGowan's stature, they are long gone before they get the deserved credit but in Shane's case, he was recognised by other living greats. There is something sacred about the picture with Springsteen, after all the hell-raising Shane MacGowan departed this earth in a state of grace where he was also recognised by his country and its people at a 60th birthday gala concert in Dublin in 2018.

"Shane was deeply moved to be honoured like that, he was crying when the President handed him the [lifetime achievement] award, he didn't expect it. I was just glad we managed to do it with the timing, I didn't know he wouldn't have a 70th."

Perhaps it was Tom Waits who put it best after MacGowan's passing. "A Bard’s bard, may he cast his spell upon us all forevermore".

• The reissue of Red Roses For Me is out now