Subject: RE: Pogues Question
From:
GUEST,UB Dan
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 11:06 AM
I shared some of this information with Ed...but thought I would post it in case anyone else had an interest...
A great site for Pogues history is:
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/skovar1/myhomepage/decade/decade.html
Written by MacGowan, 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' is a classic tale of love and drink and death; purple poetry set in the lilt of an accordion sea. 'In blood and death 'neath a screaming sky/I lay down on the ground and the arms and legs of other men were scattered all around .../I saw the streams, the rolling hills /where his brown eyes were waiting and I thought about a pair of brown eyes that waited once for me.'
Back in London - where 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' was enjoying critical fervour and mass cries of 'hit' - The Pogues worked out an accompanying video with Alex Cox and his co-director Martin Turner.
The result was not exactly standard Stiff stuff: the elusive brown eyes were seen in a paper bag and on a pool cue before being gobbled by a bull dog. Other shots clipped a dull-brained Costello, complete with chest-expander, and The Pogues causing certain controversy by spitting at a poster of Thatcher.
"I'd just seen the film 1984 and been really disappointed by it," says Cox. "There had been so many interesting parallels between Orwell's portrayal and the real 1984 and Thatcher's Britain, but the guys who made that film missed all their opportunities to comment. So 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' gave us the chance to rant and rave about the fact that we are just Airstrip One for the Americans and their B52 bombers and their Cruise missiles, but everyone is so plugged into their television set or their Sony Walkman that they completely miss out on a global perspective."
Super Stiff, Dave Robinson persuaded Cox and Turner to shoot an alternative to the spitting sequence and, naturally enough, it was the second version which was deemed suitable
The Pogues were given an all too rare chance of plugging the single on the radio by guesting on Saturday Live. Andy Batten-Foster freely subjected himself to their caustic humour when he pointed out that Irish rebel songs were more than a yell away from punk. As Spider curled a ready lip to reply "Yeah," pause, "you're right," the airwaves couldn't contain Shane's excessive laugh. Unperturbed as only a Radio One DJ could be, Batten- Foster inquired if they were secret Irish folkies before giving them the go ahead for 'Streams Of Whiskey' and 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes'.
['And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'] from their live set re-echoed the anti-war views of 'Brown Eyes' and so succinctly heard on MacGowan's 'Billy's Bones' 'Now Billy's out there in the desert sun and his mother cries when the morning comes/ and there's mothers cryin' all over this world for their poor dead darlin' boys and girls.
'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' was given alternative treatment by American singer/ songwriter Peter Case. He chose MacGowan's song as the final track on his critically acclaimed 'Peter Case' LP. "The bloke hasn't got a clue what he's singing about," sneers Cait. "He's done it 'cos it's a nice melody and he thinks it's cool. But he just doesn't know what he's singing, so it's like a foreign language."
O'Riordan considered their own version of 'Brown Eyes' to be the best song ever recorded. "Shane's got such a brilliant, emotive voice," she says. "If we had a different singer - even if it was someone who could write the same songs - then maybe we wouldn't come across. 'Cos Shane's voice is so bloody emotive that whatever he's singing: sentimental shit, hard shit, his own shit, shit shit - he can really put it over."
Meanwhile, Christy Moore - who had always been acknowledged, alongside The Dubliners and Clancey Brothers, as The Pogues greatest influence - began a major tour of England. Among his own gems was an interpretation of 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes'. "This," he told his audience, "is a song written by my new Hero: young MacGowan out of The Pogues."
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sj
