Nearly three years after Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan’s death, an impressive roster of artists – including U2, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, the Libertines, Dropkick Murphys, and David Gray – have come together to honor his work on the tribute LP 20th Century Paddy – The Songs of Shane MacGowan. The album arrives November 13, but you can hear U2’s contribution, a cover of the 1988 Pogues classic “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah,” right now.
“Shane MacGowan was full of contradictions — and that’s where the truth of him lived,” U2’s the Edge says in a statement. “He could be precise about what mattered and gloriously careless about everything else. If that sounds like a kind of performance, maybe it was. But as Oscar Wilde put it, ‘a mask tells us more than a face.’ The crooked grin, the wildness, the old-Ireland inflections—they weren’t disguises so much as signals. A way of placing himself in a lineage that ran from the pub storyteller to the punk stage. Somewhere between John B. Keane and The Clash, he found a voice that felt both ancient and completely of its time.”
“What he did with that voice was remarkable,” Edge continues. “He pulled together threads that shouldn’t quite fit—folk tradition, political memory, gallows humour, romance—and made them sound inevitable. His songs sound like they have always existed. He dissolved himself into them and, in the process, created the Shane MacGowan myth. The details of his life barely surface, but you learn exactly what he cared about. And that’s the point.”
In March, Bruce Springsteen shared his rendition of “A Rainy Night In Soho” that he created for the album. “[Shane] was raw, hilarious, no apologies, and profound,” Springsteen said in a statement. “His soul was filled with the transgressive and ecstatic properties of the saints. I don’t know who’ll be listening to my music in 100 years, but I know they’ll be listening to Shane’s.”
U2 recorded “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah” during a very busy time for the band. They dropped two EPs earlier this year, Days of Ash and Easter Lily, and the leadoff single, “Street of Dreams,” from their forthcoming studio album, due later this year. It’s their first album of new songs since 2017’s Songs of Experience, and it marks the return of drummer Larry Mullen Jr, who had to sit out their 2023/24 Sphere residency as he recovered from back surgery.
On September 25, they’ll commemorate the 50th anniversary of their formation, though it’s unclear how they’ll mark the occasion.
