{"id":2761,"date":"2025-08-25T18:29:54","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T18:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/?p=2761"},"modified":"2025-08-25T18:29:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T18:29:58","slug":"rum-sodomy-the-lash-this-is-the-true-story-behind-the-pogues-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/2025\/08\/25\/rum-sodomy-the-lash-this-is-the-true-story-behind-the-pogues-masterpiece\/","title":{"rendered":"Rum Sodomy & the Lash: This is the true story behind The Pogues\u2019 masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"\n[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_code module_class=”custom-cat” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]
\t
\t\tMojo<\/pee>\t<\/div>\t
\t\tFEATURE<\/pee>\t<\/div><\/div>[\/et_pb_code][et_pb_text module_class=”article-title” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”||||||||” header_text_align=”center” header_text_color=”#111111″ header_font_size=”68px” custom_margin=”40px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

The Pogues unleash Rum Sodomy & the Lash<\/h1>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”intro-text” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_orientation=”center” custom_padding=”||0px|||” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Out of the saloon bars of early-\u201980s north London came an unholy union of Irish rebel music and punk, fronted by hard-drinking poet-bard Shane MacGowan. In 1985, The Pogues recorded their masterpiece of romanticism, defiance and defeat with Elvis Costello at the controls. \u201cIt was suddenly like the songs sounded huge and full,\u201d recall the principals. \u201cYou\u2019d have to say it was awe-inspiring.\u201d<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-names” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”14px” text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Interviews: Andrew Perry<\/b><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/Pogues.120.CT_.00.04.1985.A.11jpg-100-1.jpg” title_text=”Pogues.120.CT.00.04.1985.A.11jpg-100-1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Up against the wall: The Pogues in Berlin, April 20, 1985 (from top) Cait O\u2019Riordan, Andrew Ranken, Philip Chevron, James Fearnley, Spider Stacy, Shane MacGowan.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Shane MacGowan (vocals):<\/strong> The energy of punk rock was already in Irish music. When I was a kid, I saw The Dubliners, The Clancy Brothers \u2013 it was all around. The idea for The Pogues was just adding a bass guitar, and a very loud drummer stood up in the middle \u2013 Moe Tucker-style, except he was (clenches fists). And Spider\u2019s drinks tray as well, a traditional Irish instrument \u2013 like the bones or the spoons [live, Spider Stacy was wont to hit himself over the head with a drinks tray].<\/p>\n

Spider Stacy (tin whistle, vocals): <\/strong>I first met Shane when he was in The Nipple Erectors. You could hear that this guy was a really great tunesmith, and the lyrics were always smart and slightly psychotic. In early \u201981, Shane, myself and members of my old band The Millwall Chainsaws played down at [Richard Strange\u2019s] Cabaret Futura as The New Republicans, doing Irish rebel songs, and that was the springboard for The Pogues. Shane had wide reading, empathy, and a keen and observant eye \u2013 but the way he plunged into that whole Behan-esque, Joycean literary tradition, you\u2019d have to say it was awe-inspiring.<\/p>\n

Jem Finer (banjo):<\/strong> There was this period where it was just me and Shane practising and going busking. When he started teaching me what would become Pogues songs, I was quite blown away. It felt so familiar and old already, but also so totally of that moment.<\/p>\n

Dave Robinson (Stiff Records co-founder):<\/strong> I went to see them early on: they did two songs and dived into the audience, and only the drummer [Andrew Ranken] was left. I went into the public bar next door and they were all in there having a pint, so I thought, These are my people. Their first manager, Stan Brennan, had produced [1984\u2019s debut] Red Roses For Me, so we signed that and it sold about 4,000 copies over a few months. They were always so smashed out of their minds, it was very hard to get things going. They had a small punky crowd. The Irish didn\u2019t like them, because they were, a) English, and b) too drunk even for Irish people, so we got them a tour with Elvis Costello [circa Goodbye Cruel World], and after that they were starting to get wild audience participation.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/Pogues.35.bw_.00.00.1985.A.7.pg-1.jpg” title_text=”Pogues.35.bw.00.00.1985.A.7.pg-1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Chevron, Fearnley and MacGowan on board the Rum Sodomy & The Lash LP launch, London, 1985<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

SS:<\/strong> The drinking thing got rather overplayed. It was a recurrent motif, if you like, but we didn\u2019t drink any more than any other band. I mean, Jesus, have you ever met an orchestra?<\/p>\n

Jem F:<\/strong> Shane\u2019s writing was becoming more expansive. A Pair Of Brown Eyes had actually been around since Shane and I were busking, as this song called Me And Hanley, about the Falklands Islands \u2013 an anti-Thatcher, anti-war song. The Old Main Drag was also one of the first songs we did, but songs would change form, or split apart, and one part would meet up with a bit of another song, in this long gestation. Sally MacLennane, on the other hand, just arrived fully formed. Shane would just come in and go, \u201cHere\u2019s a song.\u201d Kind of mind-blowing.<\/p>\n

SM:<\/strong> I was reading a lot of history books. People used to know their own history, and my grandparents on both sides had fucking done their part in what is known as the Irish revolution. So, what? I\u2019ve got to become a moron because I play in bands?<\/p>\n

James Fearnley (accordion):<\/strong> For the Costello tour, our sound man Darryl Hunt made this mixtape of Irish traditionals, and elements from those songs found their way into the second slew of material, like I lifted an accordion part from Dermot O\u2019Brien\u2019s Connemara Rose for A Pair Of Brown Eyes, and we all thought it was really funny.<\/p>\n

SS:<\/strong> There\u2019s been a perception in some quarters that The Pogues were a one-man-band. That was really not the case at all. James Fearnley has never had the credit he deserves for arranging the songs. You often had to coax songs out of Shane, and usually it was a cooperative effort.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

\u201cWe knocked heads a few times. Shane was a feisty fucker.\u201d<\/h2>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

James Fearnley<\/h3>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

James F:<\/strong> There were many times where it ended up with Jem, Shane and I in a rehearsal room, getting to the bottom of what Shane was trying to do, while everybody else went to the pub. We knocked heads a few times. Shane was a feisty fucker, I maybe saw more of his feisty side than the vulnerable, gentle side. But I was gobsmacked to find that he\u2019d written Sally MacLennane. I was ready to believe it was a traditional, just because of the subject matter of the pub and saying goodbye to somebody, and the way that it sounded.<\/p>\n

Jem F:<\/strong> For the Irish tunes we actually covered, Shane and I had these little books called Traditional Songs Popular In Ireland. Stuff like Eric Bogle\u2019s And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda was in there, as was Ewan MacColl\u2019s Dirty Old Town, which we already knew from The Dubliners.<\/p>\n

DR:<\/strong> After the Costello tour I\u2019d put the feelers out, Would Elvis produce them? He\u2019d left Stiff and his manager, Jake Riviera, my ex-partner, had him signed to his new label, F-Beat, so it was a delicate negotiation. As luck would have it, Elvis had the hots for Cait [O\u2019Riordan, bassist], so he decided he would do it.<\/p>\n

Elvis Costello (producer):<\/strong> I saw my task as to capture them in their dilapidated glory before a more professional producer fucked them up by taking away that raw thing they had on-stage.<\/p>\n

James F:<\/strong> I was intimidated on the first day when he came down the stairs into the basement at Elephant Studios in Metropolitan Wharf, Wapping. There was Elvis with his pork-pie hat on, peeling a pomelo \u2013 a fruit that actually rhymes with his name. By now, he was already living with Cait in Holland Park \u2013 hence the exotic fruit. It was a bit like, \u201cOh, we\u2019re West End people now, and you\u2019re still north Londoners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jem F:<\/strong> Elvis was a massive step up from Stan. You felt you were in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing. It was suddenly like the songs sounded huge and full, reaching a potential. <\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/47270367.jpg” title_text=”The Pogues” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

(From left) Ranken, MacGowan, Fearnley, Stacy, Jem Finer and O\u2019Riordan, 1984<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Dick Cuthell (horn):<\/strong> I\u2019d encountered Costello on [1979 EC production] The Specials. I\u2019d actually worked with The Dubliners and The Clancy Brothers back in the early \u201970s while I was the engineer at Island\u2019s studio in Chiswick, which [The Pogues] liked. They asked me to put a horn arrangement on And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. So many bands after punk didn\u2019t have decorum, but I found The Pogues very focused. After one listen you couldn\u2019t help \u2018getting\u2019 this song, so I made up a brass section which was meant to evoke a rather sombre military band. I later found out that a distant relation of mine, Algernon Hubert Cuthell, was killed at Gallipoli, where the song character loses his legs.<\/p>\n

James F:<\/strong> We had our misunderstandings with Costello over who was in the band, and who was producing. That was partly my problem. Elvis did the slide on Jesse James, and I got cross, because I thought he should be behind the desk.<\/p>\n

EC:<\/strong> I know Shane didn\u2019t like me at all\u2026 I wasn\u2019t a punk, as far as he was concerned. I think he thought I was a dilettante. The music I\u2019d made immediately before that wasn\u2019t my strongest game, so there was every reason.<\/p>\n

James F:<\/strong> There was this Ovation guitar Costello brought in, which Shane thought was bewitched or something. He projected whatever inner conflict he had about working with Elvis onto it. Here was a songwriter\u2019s songwriter with a certain amount of power, who was going out with Cait, when Shane and Cait had had a relationship, and with Shane being a lightning conductor for emotions that he wouldn\u2019t know what to do with apart from make them into a song or drink himself stupid\u2026 so, he gave the guitar a kick and it went flying across the room, and we had to make sure that Elvis didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

SS:<\/strong> The album title was [drummer] Andrew Ranken\u2019s idea: he\u2019d read that Winston Churchill was having an argument with some admiral, and Churchill said to him, \u201cOh don\u2019t talk to me about the traditions of the Royal Navy, they\u2019re just rum, sodomy and the lash!\u201d Perfect!<\/p>\n

James F:<\/strong> Thematically, it\u2019s a combative record. A lot of it is to do with war, weaponry and soldiers. Billy\u2019s Bones is all about a soldier, The Gentleman Soldier, And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda too. A Pair Of Brown Eyes is all about military service and how people don\u2019t understand it now, and The Wild Cats Of Kilkenny is about a fight.<\/p>\n

Jem F:<\/strong> I was talking to my wife Marcia Farquhar, who\u2019s an artist and an art historian, and she suggested the G\u00e9ricault painting The Raft Of The Medusa, for the sleeve \u2013 not only because it fits with the nautical theme, but also because it was a protest against this shipwreck where the underclasses had been left abandoned on a raft, while the top brass got the lifeboats. That very much resonated with the worldview of The Pogues. Marcia\u2019s also a prolific collagist, and when Stan and his partner had their first son, Marcia made a collage for them with babies cut out from a Mothercare catalogue, and our heads stuck on them. We decided to do the same on The Raft Of The Medusa.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/shutterstock_editorial_826741cl.jpg” title_text=”‘The Tube'” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

The Pogues perform on The Tube, 1985.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Peter Mennim (front cover artist):<\/strong> The band had had this idea, so I took photos of each of them in their studio \u2013 in Camden, I think. I asked them which character they would like to be in the original G\u00e9ricault, and shot them accordingly. Then I had a large print-out of the painting made, and painted them straight onto that.<\/p>\n

SS:<\/strong> We had one of the best launch events ever on HMS Belfast. We sailed across the Thames on a longboat in 19th-century naval costumes and played the album. Later on, a Melody Maker journalist was thrown overboard by a Sounds journalist \u2013 a good party!<\/p>\n

DR:<\/strong> The album charted [in August \u201985], then went straight out again. Slowly, we got up towards 30,000 here, and 100,000 in France \u2013 the French love a genuine alcoholic. When we really got The Pogues going, was when we did The Irish Rover with The Dubliners [in \u201987]. Before that, The Pogues were seen as \u2018plastic paddies\u2019, but that track turned the Irish audience onto them.<\/p>\n

EC:<\/strong> I quit production as a full-time occupation after The Pogues. When all\u2019s said and done, The Sick Bed Of C\u00fachulainn, Sally MacLennane, A Pair Of Brown Eyes \u2013 those are the truly great songs MacGowan wrote.<\/p>\n

SS:<\/strong> By the early \u201990s, Shane\u2019s writing had dried up. Certainly, there was a lot of burn-out. It just became a slog. I wouldn\u2019t presume to speak for Shane, but I think he just lost interest.<\/p>\n

James F:<\/strong> Forty years later, RS&TL won\u2019t stay in its box. It wants to get out, which is why we\u2019re playing it again.<\/p>\n

Jem F:<\/strong> It\u2019s taken on a whole life of its own, and we\u2019ve got guests appearing like Lisa O\u2019Neill and guys from Lankum. It feels like how tradition is supposed to work: you take something from the past, then you rework and reconfigure it, and pass it on again. So playing these songs with this new generation who were inspired by us, it feels like a circle completing itself. The Pogues present A Celebration Of 40 Years Of Rum Sodomy & The Lash live in the UK in May.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/Rum-Sodomy-the-Lash.jpg” title_text=”Version 1.0.0″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Shane MacGowan interviewed in 2012. Elvis Costello quoted from Stereogum and Virgin Media Television, both 2022. See Peter Mennim\u2019s other work at www.petermennim.com. <\/em><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Out of the saloon bars of early-\u201980s north London came an unholy union of Irish rebel music and punk, fronted by hard-drinking poet-bard Shane MacGowan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2953,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions\/2953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}