Shane MacGowan and his strange obsession with Spain

Discover the hidden love the chaotic Pogues frontman had for Spanish poetry and history

The late, great Shane MacGowan of The Pogues will perhaps best be remembered as the defining voice of a generation of Irish people living outside their native country (or perhaps for his drinking), but did you know that Shane actually had a lasting love affair with Spain, writing several songs about the country and its history?

Perhaps the best-known instance of this is the frenetic Pogues hit ‘Fiesta!’, a song about Almería whose music video was bizarrely filmed in Barcelona. On the Pogues’ website they acknowledge that the lyrics to the song are in “(very rough) Spanish and a small amount of Italian”.

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But there is also the song ‘Lorca’s Novena’ from the 1990 album Hell’s Ditch, which tells the story of the death of homosexual poet and national Spanish hero Federico García Lorca, who was murdered by supporters of General Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War and whose body was rumoured to have gotten up and walked away.

Shane first discovered the delights of Spain, and specifically Almería, while filming the movie ‘Straight to Hell’, starring Joe Strummer and Courtney Love, which is something of a parody of the many spaghetti westerns that were filmed in the desert of Almería and to which The Pogues contributed three songs for the soundtrack: ‘Rake at the Gates of Hell’, ‘If I Should Fall from Grace with God’ and ‘Rabinga’.

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Other aspects of Spanish history have served as inspiration for other legendary Irish folk musicians, with Christy Moore’s ‘Viva La Quinta Brigada’ about the International Brigades that served in the Civil War being a shining example.

Image: peelandstick/Flickr

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