Streams of Whiskey - The Pogues (Red Roses for Me, 1984)

This was my Xmas present from Mark in 1984 (?) - on cassette, of course, so that I could play it on my Walkman... actually it wasn't a real SONY Walkman, I only had some cheap rip off. It sounds improbable, but the Walkman was every bit as revolutionary in 1984 as the iPod is today. Everybody had one, and the newspapers were full of articles talking about an epidemic of premature hearing loss resulting from a generation of teens blasting their music too loud. Erin might differ, but I don't appear to have suffered a significant decay in my hearing resulting from too much Pogues - despite my best efforts. Pogues singer Shane MacGowan is both one of rock's greatest poets and biggest drunks. A quick perusal of the photo galleries of his website reveal just how deeply he's been ravaged by the bottle. MacGowan commits slow suicide. Meanwhile his 'Fairytale of New York' becomes further entrenched as one of the few meaningful recent contributions to the Christmas song book; one of the most popular songs of the season. It's a double achievement worthy of Dylan Thomas.