Et af den moderne tidsalders uforklarligste mirakler er vel, at Irland’s største sangskriver og sanger i nyere tid, The Pogues’ Shane MacGowan, stadig er levende og i dag fylder 63 år. Flere nye sange bliver det dog ikke til for vores Shane, der i enhver forstand er alvorligt mærket af sit gennemalkoholiserede liv, så her som markering en af klassikerne fra MacGowan-guldalderen, da melodi, lyrik og levering gik op i allerhøjeste enhed. Aldrig er hundevæddeløbenes død i London vel blevet skildret mere kærligt taberromantisk end her…

Here a tower shinning bright
Once stood gleaming in the night
Where now there’s just the rubble
In the hole here the paddies and the frogs
Came to gamble on the dogs
Came to gamble on the dogs not long ago

Oh the torn up ticket stubs
From a hundred thousand mugs
Now washed away with dead dreams in the rain
And the car-parks going up
And they’re pulling down the pubs
And its just another bloody rainy day

Oh sweet city of my dreams
Of speed and skill and schemes
Like Atlantis you just disappeared from view
And the hare upon the wire
Has been burnt upon your pyre
Like the black dog that once raced
Out from trap two

© Shane Macgowan