"The most important thing to remember about drunks is that drunks are far more intelligent than non-drunks. They spend a lot of time talking in pubs, unlike workaholics who concentrate on their careers and ambitions, who never develop their higher spiritual values, who never explore the insides of their head like a drunk does." - Shane MacGowan, Melody Maker interview 1991
I love Shane, I love the Pogues, but I think it's well overdue for us as a culture to stop romanticizing chronic alcoholism. It destroys people, it destroys families.
I agree but would caveat by saying that there are a lot of things in the world that destroy people and families. A lack of romance and escape being another of them.
I think there is stark difference between being the victim of an alcoholic abusive relationship one cannot escape and, "a lack of romance and escape" Mr. Contrarian.
yeah for sure, I understand the hurt. I guess that I feel bad because I like a drink or four and I don't think I hurt anyone else but feel like I should be guilty all the time.. so I stop boozing and then I really miss it.
In simpler times I'd live in the pub I think, I might be happier for it!
He claimed alcohol was a mystic sacrament, in an interview I read long ago. That's an awfully destructive spirituality, but it was very much his choice, whether rationalized addiction or not. Personally, I've seen that destruction too closely to find it anything but tragic, but I'm grateful for his poetry.
