The cause of death of the legendary vocalist of the punk band The Pogues Shane MacGowan has been revealed

Shane MacGowan, the Pogues’ songwriter and Irish music legend, has died aged 65.

Shane MacGowan, lead singer and songwriter of Celtic punk band The Pogues and one of the greatest bandleaders of all time, has died after a long period of ill health, writes The Guardian. A family statement said he died at 3.30am on November 30 and was described as “our most beautiful, dear and dearly loved one”.

His wife Victoria Mary Clarke wrote in a statement on social media: “Shane will always be the light I hold before me, the measure of my dreams and the love of my life… I couldn’t be happier to have met him, to love him and to be so endlessly and unconditionally loved them”.

In December 2022, McGowan was hospitalized with viral encephalitis and spent several months of 2023 in intensive care as a result.

McGowan sought to bring the power of Irish folk music to the rock scene, drawing inspiration from literature, mythology and the Bible, notes The Guardian. “It became obvious that everything that could be done in the standard rock format was usually done quite poorly,” he told NME in 1983, as The Pogues were beginning to take off. “We just wanted to shove music that has roots and is generally stronger and has more real anger and emotion down the throats of a completely paparazzi-oriented pop audience.”

Shane wrote frequently about Irish culture and nationalism, as well as the experiences of the Irish diaspora, challenging—or reinforcing—the racist stereotype of the “paddy.” In Julien Temple’s 2020 documentary Shard of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, he said: “I was ashamed that I didn’t have the courage to join the IRA – and the Pogues were my way of overcoming that.”

His dedication to his craft earned him an Ivor Novello songwriting inspiration award in 2018 after five albums with the Pogues and various solo releases, The Guardian writes. The Pogues’ chart-topping song “Fairytale of New York”, a duet with Kirsty MacColl, reached No. 2 in 1987 and has become a Christmas classic.

Irish President Michael Higgins was among those to pay tribute, writing: “His words united Irish people around the world with their culture and history… The genius of Shane’s contribution lies in the fact that his songs reflect, as Shane would put it, the measure of our dreams – about so many worlds, and especially about love, about the experience of emigration and how to face the challenges of this experience with authenticity and courage.”

McGowan was born on December 25, 1957, writes The Guardian. His parents were Irish immigrants from Kent who moved around the south-east of England. His entire family was musical: McGowan said he learned a song a day from his mother’s side of the family and performed for the first time at age three. Young McGowan was renowned for his literary ability and won a scholarship to Westminster School, but was expelled for drug possession in his second year. As a teenager, he thought about becoming a priest, but then found himself in punk culture. “I was happy during the punk times. Incredibly happy,” McGowan told Vox. – You call it chaos. I don’t consider it chaos. I consider it a natural life.”

The musician began drinking as a child, when his family gave him Guinness to help him sleep, and suffered from the effects of drug and alcohol abuse, but in 1990 he claimed: “Self-abuse, or whatever you want to call it, is also incredible.” creative.”

He first gained recognition in 1976, when a photograph of him with a wounded ear at a concert at the ICA in London was published in the NME under the headline: “Cannibalism at a Clash concert.” Known then as Shane O’Hooligan, McGowan formed his own punk band the Nipple Erectors – later the Nips.

McGowan and fellow Nips member John Hasler teamed up with members of the Millwall Chainsaws in the early ’80s to form Pogue Mahone – a corruption of the Gaelic póg mo thóin, or “kiss my ass”. They changed their name to the Pogues partly due to BBC censorship and gained a reputation for their fierce live performances.

The band received rave reviews for their 1984 debut album, “Red Roses for Me.”

Hell’s Ditch, released in 1990, was the band’s fifth album and the last to feature McGowan as a member. After collapsing on the way to a concert supporting Bob Dylan in 1988, he was diagnosed with hepatitis and told he would die unless he stopped drinking. McGowan was eventually fired from the band in 1991 after he failed to appear during a tour of Japan.

In 2001, he joined a full-fledged Pogues reunion that lasted until 2014.