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Source: Q magazine
Date: 1996
Issue: 127
Copyright: (c) Q magazine 1996
For years, at the mention of Shane MacGowan's name. heads have been shaken,
voices lowered, and someone has felt compelled to mutter "He's only got six
months to live. you know." It's a morbid curiosity which MacGowan professes to
hate - "I just think, How boring. It's all you expect from fucking morons" -
yet he volunteers constant references to his own demise as if he secretly relished
the ghoulish attentions of the Jeremiahs. His first Q sighting was in May, l988. He washed down stomach ulcer pills with
port, wine, vodka and a champagne chaser. He said he'd been thinking a lot
about death lately while confined to bed with pneumonia, then again after being
knocked down by a taxi. "I decided I didn't care," he said, wheezing.
The following year he staggered from pillar to Pogue. evading an interview. while sliding the occasional dark quip across the table. Asked if his punishing practices might shorten his creative life. he said. "I'm shortening my life, full stop." He described his life story as "the education of a modern suicide" and, musing on a forthcoming support spot with Bob Dylan, he joked, "Never mind Dylan and the Dead, this'll be Dylan and the Nearly Dead!"
By 1993 he was reflecting on his departure from The Pogues after a Japanese tour during which the rumour that he was dying became so feverish it had to take a cold shower to avert spontaneous combustion. Agreeing to an in-depth interview at last. he spoke of a regular hospital appointment to check up on his liver, he drank, retired to the toilet for the odd line of coke, praised the efficacy of speedballs (heroin with amphetamines). boasted of taking up to 50 tabs of acid a day. Then he apologised if that sounded like advocacy and warned that he could handle it only because "I've got the constitution for it" and he didn't drink brandy, "the worst. a killer".
Given the medical history. the up-to-the-minute bulletin from the MacGowan camp is remarkable: "He did have a bit of a spat earlier in the year, he got a bit run down. But now he's fighting fit. Doing weights even! On the wagon though I don't know how long that will last. But this is under doctor's orders. He was told he really did have to take steps this time or..." He'd be dead in six months?
"Well. he's toured through the summer. he's written the next album and he's going to Rockfield with The Popes in September. If he's still got only six months to live. it's going to be a busy six months."
THE VERDICT: The perfect myth. Infinite serial undeniability. Bound to be true on day. Bollocks so far, though.