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RUMOUR HAS IT THAT SHANE MacGOWAN WANTED TO RECORD AN album which featured the word 'Paddy' in every song-title. Once, this might have been greeted as a lash of his famous barbed wit. Now it just sounds like more wittering from a man whose liver abuse stands to earn Filthy MacNasty's north London soak-hole a blue plaque in a couple of decades' time.
He's managed the three, at any rate: 'Paddy Rolling Stone', 'Rock'n'Roll Paddy' and 'Paddy Public Enemy No 1' all rollicking pastiches of 'timeworn' Celtic'n'Western standards, with the odd "put another record on the record machine" thrown in for added bar band resonance. MacGowan claims that with this album his second since the demise of The Pogues he's returned to his first love: traditional Irish music. Which basically means playing a load of other people's songs because he can't be arsed to write his own any more.
Mostly, they're tunes so hackneyed they've lost all trace of ownership ('This Old Man' turns up as 'Skipping Rhymes', complete with "Nick-knack paddy-whack" chorus, interspersed with Hank Williams-a-like acoustic'n'fiddle homilies like 'Wanderin' Star'. His rootsical bent even stretches to a reggae track, 'B And I Ferry', which appears to feature the line, "Rub-a-dub-dub in the pub". Which would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic.
The fire and bile of 'Sodomy'-era Shane takes some time to peek through the fug. 'St John Of God' is a moving Tom Waits lope, and 'Truck Driving Man' one of the few instances where MacGowan's country-folk galloping is genuinely rousing. Lyrically, the fiercest track, oddly enough, is 'Skipping Rhymes', which opens with a murder and blazes along not unlike the Poguetry of old.
Crock of gold? No, just crocked. 4/10