MacGowan has often made the point that his alcoholism is inextricably linked to his creative output -- and it certainly seems to work for him. The bulk of the best the Pogues had to offer during their seven-year run from 1984 to 1991 came from MacGowan's pen in whole or in part. Indeed, MacGowan co-wrote with band mate Jem Finer the Pogues' most famous song, the one that's still played incessantly in the bars and pubs of England, Ireland and New York throughout the Christmas season, "Fairytale of New York," which he sang on their 1988 album "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" in a duet with the late Kirsty MacColl.

It's a song that could not have been written by a teetotaler. In it, MacGowan's frog voice cracks to MacColl:

It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you, baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true



The idea of some drunk, not unlike MacGowan himself, cooling his hindquarters in the New York drunk tank on a Christmas Eve and wishing his woman the joys of the season is at once pathetic, amusing and poetic. Perhaps because the poet has wished upon himself the indignities of the overly bibulous, he has a natural affinity for the downtrodden. But there's also something to the ancient idea of mind-altering substances being used to unlock the creative process. This is not to say that every writer must be an unrepentant boozer, or that every drunk necessarily has a little bit of Dylan Thomas flowing through his veins, but it does give a writer something to write about.

MacGowan's fondness for firewater is nearly congenital. According to his recent stab at autobiography, the aptly titled "A Drink With Shane MacGowan," which he coauthored with his wife, writer Victoria Clarke, MacGowan began hitting the sauce at age 5 -- his Uncle John in Tipperary would slip him two bottles of stout after stumbling home from "the boozer." Around the same time, he got ahold of his first bottle of whiskey, which he guzzled down midday in a farmyard. What followed was a hallucination wherein nearby geese spoke "gobbledygook" to the young MacGowan. And it was all downhill after that.

Born in England to Irish parents, he was raised in Tipperary for most of the first six years of his life. Afterward, his family settled in London, where he still lives part of the year, the rest of his time being spent in Dublin. A literary prodigy, he was an avid reader of Irish lit, and at age 14 he won a coveted scholarship to the elite Westminster public school. But Westminster booted him out a year later for drug abuse. He eventually found punk, began calling himself Shane O'Hooligan and led an infamous band called the Nipple Erectors. Later he met up with a ragged crew of ne'er-do-wells into traditional Irish music, and Pogue Mahone (Gaelic for "Kiss my ass") was born. Since some folks at the BBC knew what that meant, the group shortened the name to the Pogues.

MacGowan was the soul of the group. He wrote and sang a large portion of the songs, and his defiant, drunken truculence quickly made him an idol to legions of Irish, nearly Irish and wannabe Irish. MacGowan retains that status to this day, though his current notoriety in no way matches those bygone days of Pogue popularity. Still, his admirers are doggedly loyal. None other than legendary Irish singer Christy Moore has referred to him as a great poet. It's MacGowan's verse -- steeped in an Irish la vie de bohème -- that keeps them coming back.

MacGowan's penchant for the literary always hits a high note when he pays tribute to fellow writers, such as tippler, novelist and quadriplegic Christy Brown (immortalized by Daniel Day-Lewis in the film "My Left Foot"), whom MacGowan sang of in "Down All the Days" on the 1989 "Peace and Love" album:

Christy Brown a clown around town
Now a man of renown from Dingle to Down
I type with me toes
Suck stout through me nose
And where it's gonna end
God only knows

Down all the days
The tap-tap tapping
Of the typewriter pays
The gentle rattling
Of the drays
Down all the days

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