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Before the release of IF I SHOULD FALL FROM GRACE WITH GOD, the Pogues had it all to play for. Their previous album, RUM SODOMY AND THE LASH, had included a pair of bona-fide classics in the shape of 'A Pair of Brown Eyes' and the 'Old Main Drag', but there was still a sense that their promise had not been fully realised.
The portents were good, though, as the intervening period saw the band produce two superb tracks, 'Haunted' and 'A Rainy Night in Soho', the former a single and the latter the lead from their 'Poguetry in Motion' EP. Still, if they were to ascend to the highest plane, a truly great album was needed. In early 1998, they delivered.
IF I SHOULD FALL FROM GRACE WITH GOD was the band's first album as an eight piece, and the contribution of the two most recent recruits, Terry Woods and Philip Chevron, can be heard both in a more expansive sound and in arrangements which were cleaner than previously, yet did not compromise the band's raucous power. likewise, Steve Lillywhite assuming the producer's chair enabled the band to create a grander canvas upon which Shane MacGowan could splatter his darkly poetic visions.
The album's calibre is apparent from the opening four song salvo: The title track, 'Turkish Song of the Damned', 'Bottle of Smoke' and, of course, 'Fairytale of New York'.
The folk purists who recoiled in horror when The Pogues first exploded on the scene missed the band's unique appeal. They blended the cosmopolitanism of their London roots, the sensibility of punk, and the romance of Irish traditional music into one awesome and seamless whole.
Listen to the title track, for instance, where James Fearnley's accordion hurls out an insinuating riff over the propulsive drumming of Andrew Ranken. then comes MacGowan, all raging defiance: "This land was always ours/ was the proud land of our fathers/ It belongs to us and them/ not to any of the others." This is the sound of a band like no other.
'Bottle of Smoke', a tale of a struggling punter's big win, could have been twee in other hands. Not here. It is surely only Shane MacGowan who could have described the winning nag as coming "up on the left like a streak of light/ Like a drunken fuck on a Saturday night."
And then there is "Fairytale...". Familiarity can sometimes inure the listener to a song's brilliance, but this is truly one of the greats. The band swing in majestically while the lyrics have pathos, romance, hope and desperation in abundance. Lines like "Sinatra was swinging/ All the drunks they were singing/ We kissed on the corner/ And dance through the night" show MacGowan at his evocative best, while the tone of Kirsty MaColl, his partner in duet, is just about perfect.
While coverage of The Pogues has always centred on Shane, the other members contribute some gems here. 'Thousands are Sailing' should earn Philip Chevron a place in songwriter's heaven, while Terry Woods' mournful 'Streets of Sorrow' is the perfect counterpart to the song is segues into, the furious 'Birmingham Six'.
The emotional range of which the Pogues were capable is underlined when this is immediately followed by 'Lullaby of London', a song of exquisite tenderness. in truth, this strain in the band's work was bot their strongest and most often overlooked. they were kings of bleary-eyed romanticism and half-crushed tenderness.
Shane, inhabiting some unique space between the gutter and the Gods, delivers possibly the best vocal of his life, full of wistful regret. "As I walked on with a heavy heart/ And a stone danced on the tide/ And the song went on/ Though the lights were gone/ And the North wind gently sighed." The Pogues were, to this writer, always more powerful at emoting, rather than rabble rousing. This is them at their most affecting and poignant.
And there is still another storming song to come. 'The Broad Majestic Shannon' shows the band in trad anthem mode, both pinning for lost beauty and affirming the future.
The Pogues shone brilliantly in the midst of an often insipid music scene. IF I SHOULD FALL FROM GRACE WITH GOD is chock full of rage and romance, defiance and dreams, poetry and poignancy. When the tales of excess and hedonism which attend the band have long worn threadbare, this will stand as their crowning glory.