loosie: words: DVD Review -- If I Should Fall From Grace

DVD Review -- If I Should Fall From Grace

The Pogues' Shane MacGowan in all his drug-addled brilliance.

by Slim Rivets | 2004.01.22

The disc opens with Shane and some acquaintances sharing a drink and meal outside some small bistro in a non-descript area of London. The precedent is set early as Shane interrupts the hearty dining with a rambling incoherent speech that his friends regard with quiet bemusement. One suspects they’ve all had ample practice at this. He offers a laugh, a sloppily scratchy throat-type gurgle that becomes painfully familiar as the disc progresses, to show that he has made his point and then stares dazedly off into space. This is our introduction to his genius.

What follows is a very professionally put together package that chronicles the life of this man with the aid of videos, concert footage, taped television appearances, published articles, and archived photos. The story is told, however, through the various interviews running the entire disc. The director must be commended for the line-up of interviewees she arranged and the information she gleans from them. There are several interviews with Shane at various locations and in various states of consciousness. At times he is both hard to watch and hard to understand, but it is a treat to watch him drunkenly stumble to a piano in the middle of a crowded bar and shut out everyone and everything while tinkling a beautiful melody while the whole noisy place goes silent and watches. There are interviews with his mother and father, friends from his teenange punk years, ex-bandmates from both the Nips and the Pogues, Nick Cave, and best of all, his “missus Vickie”. She offers the greatest outsider’s insight into Shane’s life with all the acuity only a partner of 20 some-odd years can provide. Any casual Pogues fan, and certainly any MacGowan fan, will appreciate the depth these interviews reach. Anyone unfamiliar with either can easily learn both his and the band’s history from them.

Music from his earliest days up to more recent croonings provide a steady background from beginning to end. Used in a variety of ways, it is always used well. Discussion of his earliest punk and pop days with the Nips is buffeted by the little-known songs Shane wrote and sang back then. Pogue melodies are often played behind interviews or over clips of Shane conducting his daily business. Sometimes people are discussing the actual song behind played, other times its used to set a mood. It’s not all background, however. There are a handful of videos, as well as television appearances, of the Pogues and/or Shane shown in entirety. It’s really a clever and effective way of illustrating whatever point an interview was making. One of the highlights is a clip from some UK talk show (@37:16 of the disc) featuring the Pogues circa 1984 perfroming “Irish Rover” with a traditional Irish folk band. If you know the song and the way it’s traditionally played, it changes pace from fast to slow several times throughout. Its great to see this young band, who so wonderfully blended sped-up punk nihilism with Irish romanticism, sloppily playing “catch up” with these middle aged men who have grinded this song out a million times before. There’s approximately 20 men on the stage all pouring it out into this song, in varying degrees of success, with the exception for the frontmen. Standing casually up front, each with one hand buried in their jacket pocket (in traditional Irish tenor fashion), they belt it out the best they know how. While the older man rules the harmonies, Shanes kicks Hell out of the pauses, and if you look close enough you can just make out a torch being passed.

An unavoidable consequence of following Mr. MacGowan around with a camera is the tremendous amount of footage that will come out unusable due to his ongoing substance abuse. There are obvious overdubs of a rambling Shane describing the sudden realization that he was doing traditional Irish music for punk audiences (25:29-31 of Chapter 5). The editing is good but you can make out the line slipped into an extended “uh”, giving the sentence a greater, but thankfully not any different, meaning. Included in the “bonus” area is some footage of Shane conducting an intelligible and extended ramble of a discussion included in the feature. It’s unnecessary outside of the director showing just what a chore she may have had putting this thing together -- and I am of the opinion it should have been omitted.

Outside of the various bonus interview footage, there is nothing outstanding in the way of additional extras. The menu is straightforwardly set up and allows you to hop directly to songs if you wish. There is also a “sing-a-long-with” feature that highlights the words on the bottom of the screen. However this feature is used for too few songs and if decided by me, they aren’t the better songs.

As an unabashed MacGowan/Pogues addict, I found this DVD nothing short of delightful and entertaining. I found most interesting Shane’s opinion of his former band and of his place in music. Speaking of how he felt the Pogues were trying to get away from Irish music he opines, “That’s what we do…like the Specials do ska and the Stones do R&B”. Basically saying that this is “insider music made for and by people living on the outside”. Shane couldn’t make his music in a nice cottage in Tipperary, it had to be borne out of a frustrated, animated, poetic genius with enough Punk balls to get it done right. How glad I am that I got to witness it.