One out of Three Suits Me... (Rum Sodomy And The Lash - The Pogues)

Member Name: jamesdean1981

Product:	Rum Sodomy And The Lash - The Pogues
Date:	03/11/01 (219 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great folk record, Great rock record

Disadvantages: None

Possibly the best ever fusion of folk and rock, the habitual drunkard Shane MacGowan’s lyrics and vocals are damn near perfect on this record, while the rest of the Pogues provide great backing. From the melancholy ‘Navigator’ and ‘The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ to the raucous opener ‘Sick Bed of Cúchulaínn’, and equally hyperactive ‘Sally Maclennane’, this is for the most part sheer genius.

TRACK BY TRACK REVIEW

1. ‘Sick Bed of Cúchulaínn’ – Musically, absolutely incredible, played so fast you swear the start of the tune is gonna overtake the end – or something like that. Lyrically contains some words which are definitely not politically correct, but is actually a wonderful celebration of racial equality – albeit with MacGowan’s trademark screaming, such as ‘Now you'll sing a song of liberty for blacks and paks and jocks.’


2. Old Main Drag – One of the songs I like least on the album, although it has a peculiarly haunting melody, but it’s incredibly depressing – and as a Beautiful South fan, when I find music too depressing, it scares me.


3. Wild Cats of Kilkenny – Instrumental which I can take or leave. And which is, to be honest, pretty forgettable. So forgettable, I’ve more or less forgotten it. So I’ll stop trying to review it.


4. I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Every Day – Beautiful traditional song which is really well performed by the Pogues here, with MacGowan changing the lyric ‘Now, I took out my gun, With my dog I did shoot.’ to the more memorable – if less appealing to the RSPCA - ‘Well I took out my dog and him I did shoot.’


5. Pair of Brown Eyes – Any song which mentions Johnny Cash gets a thumbs up from me. Chorus is gorgeous, verses are less great – but still really
good.


6. Sally Maclennane – Probably my favourite song on the album, and certainly my favourite of the Pogues’ faster songs (although none of them touch the heartrending beauty of ‘Dirty Old Town’ and ‘Fairytale of New York’), this is an absolute riot. The wonderfully named ‘Sex Slaves From Outer Space’ played a cover in a local pub last year, which had about 150 people leaping up and dancing within 15 seconds or so. The song about life – and death – in a small town pub in Ireland can’t be effectively described – it has to be listened to to be properly appreciated - and the singalong chorus ‘Sad to say, I must be on my way…’is nothing short of fantastic.


7. A Pistol For Paddy Garcia – Much as I’d love to review it, I’m REALLY bad at remembering instrumentals. If it helps, I think it’s marginally superior to ‘Wild Cats of Kilkenny’.


8. Dirty Old Town – Totally gorgeous, another song which I’ve heard played live – and dedicated to North Wales’ very own Moss Side, Cefn Mawr – I actually slightly prefer the Dubliners’ version, with sweeter vocals than MacGowan’s. In either, though, the final verse

‘I'm going to make me a good sharp axe
Shining steel tempered in the fire
Will chop you down like an old dead tree’

Carries enough emotion to choke me up every time I hear it.


9. Jesse James – The tribute to the memory of famed Robin Hood-style outlaw Jesse James, and vitriolic bile aimed at his killer Robert Ford ‘who shot him in the back, While he hung a picture on the wall’ is changed lyrics from the traditional version, in order to substantially shorten it. I actually think it loses something, cutting out some great verses, but it’s still a wonderful song.


10. Navi
gator – ‘Navigator, Navigator rise up and be strong
The morning is here and there's work to be done.’

Gorgeous. Maybe not quite up there with ‘Fairytale…’ and ‘Dirty Old Town’, but the eerily melodic story of the canal workers’ plight fills me with emotion.


11. Billy’s Bones – Another knees-up tune with a wonderful chorus

‘Hey Billy son where are you now
Don't you know that we need you now
With a ra-ta-ta and the old kow-tow
Where are Billy's bones resting now’

The story of Billy’s death out in the Middle East has some fantastically funny lines

‘Billy saw a copper and he hit him in the knee
And he took him down from six foot to five foot three
Then he hit him fair and square in the do-re-mi
That copper won't be having any family’

But is also sentimental at the end, with MacGowan’s pitying, lilted

‘And there's mothers crying all over this world
For their poor dead darling boys and girls’

Before he launches into that incredible chorus once again.


12. Gentleman Soldier – The story of a soldier who makes a young, innocent girl pregnant before revealing he’s already married could’ve been maudlin, but at the speed it’s sung is instead wonderful. As MacGowan shrieks

‘Two wives are allowed in the army
but one's too many for me’

You laugh along, callously ignoring the plight of the young girl. Or maybe that’s just me. Sorry.


13. And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda – Along with John Prine’s ‘Sam Stone’ and Siegfried Sassoon’s war poems, this is surely some of the best anti-war propoganda ever written. Savagely biting words, but with a soothing tune, and MacGowan sings the last two lines of AustraliaR
17;s unofficial national anthem to bring the album to a memorable close.

‘And their ghosts may be heard as you pass the Billabong
Who'll come-a-waltzing Matilda with me?’

Summary: