The Late Late Show tribute to Shane MacGowan revealed a lot about the late Pogues frontman, with former bandmate Terry Woods describing him as "a poet".
The 65-year-old singer-songwriter died on Thursday. MacGowan had been receiving treatment at St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin for several months. He was discharged on 22 November and returned home to spend time with his friends and family.
The Late Late Show assembled a motley crew of fellow musicians and friends to talk about a man whose music meant so much to so many. Fittingly, it was a mix of humour, irreverence and a genuine love for a unique talent. Shane MacGowan will be sorely missed.
The tribute began with Glen Hansard singing A Rainy Night in Soho, arguably MacGowan's greatest song. Then Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty said: "We'd like to send our love and our strength to Shane’s wife Victoria, his sister Siobhán, and his dad Maurice, who have lost so much more than the rest of us.
"And on behalf of everyone who, like me, grew up with his music, and on behalf of a generation of Irish people, home and abroad, who were gifted a soundtrack to our lives, which allowed us to feel part of something so much bigger, we’d like to say 'Thank you Shane. Rest in peace.’"
Watch: Glen Hansard, Terry Woods, Steve Wickham, Colm Mac Con Iomaire and Liam Ó Maonlaí perform A Rainy Night In Soho
A group chat followed, with the likes of Terry Woods, Moya Brennan, Camille O'Sullivan, Aidan Gillan and Liam Ó Maonlaí. Everyone had a tale to tell or an impression of MacGowan they wanted to share.
Former Pogues member Woods was first up, and he told Kielty: "I’ll miss MacGowan. He was a one-off. He was very funny. He was chaotic. But he always got the job done...
"I don’t know if he realised he was a poet, but he was a poet," he added.
"He was shy and he was awkward."
Recalling a recording she made with MacGowan for the soundtrack to Circle of Friends, Brennan noted: "He would always put a smile on your face."
Hansard was next, he recalled: "He’d say find the truth in that lyric. What’s the truth in that? He would push you... and he had that honesty and a kind of fearlessness about the work.
"And I think he’s told me to eff off about a hundred times. And yet I’d get a Christmas card, I’d get a birthday card, he sent me a painting... and every time he’d send you something - it was full of insults.
"The only way to deal with him... he came to me one time and said: ‘Are you the eejit who murdered the Dubliners?’ And I said, ‘Are you the eejit that murdered the Pogues?’
Kielty, who - like so many Irish people - went to London to start a new life, spoke about how MacGowan reflected the life experience of the Irish abroad.
"For me and so many others, he was that bridge. There were so many Irish bands who were trying to do this universal sound to go to the world, and The Pogues were a universal sound that was an Irish band, at the heart of it."
Woods responded: "One of the things about Shane that really got me was that he was an immigrant. And the music reflected the immigrants in a huge way. And a lot of his ideas, musically, were kind of vague memories of things that he heard years ago, maybe at home. Or when he was visiting Ireland."
Woods was also keen to emphasise that MacGowan's love of Irish music was genuine. "He wasn’t disrespectful of Irish music, in any way," he insisted. "But he was able to make the cultural connection... and that was why I joined The Pogues in the first place. I’d never played Irish music that way."
While recalling a duet she did with MacGowan of Fairytale of New York, O’Sullivan said: "I feel so lucky that I got to know him and Victoria. And that I had hugged him and danced with him, and cried with him. And that he - as a singer - was just so inspirational.
"Aidan and I spent a few hours with him last week. It was so lovely. And he was still joking away."
Gillen then recalled his first encounter with MacGowan: "My friendship with Shane began in later years - the last ten years. Just before I met Camille I was walking down Baggot Street and I saw this car parked, this battered, green Mercedes.
"It looked like they were about to rob a bank. And it was Victoria with the piercing green eyes and Shane in the back, with slicked-back hair, pale, pale skin. They looked like Bonnie and Clyde.
"It was a big love story. Kind of like a rock ’n’ roll couple - but not Sid and Nancy. More John and Yoko. If there was ever a couple where I thought their love should would go on entwined forever, through time, beyond death, it’s Shane and Victoria."
Ó Maonlaí admitted: "I was one of those people that was kind of scared. What was he going to say? Would he pick me up and throw me out? And he gave me a couple of good slaggings as well."
As well as recalling how Shane showed him how to "kill someone with a newspaper" Ó Maonlaí noted: "There are certain people in this world who protect their childish curiosity, their childlike grace.
"And Shane was one of those people."
Watch The Late Late Show tribute to Shane MacGown on the RTÉ Player
Read more:
Paul Simon recalls friendship with Shane MacGowan
The day Ray D'Arcy's mam sang with Shane MacGowan
Shane MacGowan: Twilight of a Celtic champion
