Pogues

The Pogues can't help but miss MacGowan, whose singing and songwriting wed affecting poetry with comically boozy bluster in a distinctively Irish way. But with "Peace and Love," the Pogues show that they have other creative resources as well. Of the 14 songs on the album, MacGowan wrote only six. "He just hadn't written as many songs for this one as he had done for the others," Stacy explained. "Partly, I expect, because there was less need for him to do so because they were coming from other people in the band." In spreading the songwriting around, the Pogues haven't sacrificed quality. MacGowan's contributions include such strong numbers as "Cotton Fields," a driving tune based upon American chain-gang work songs; the humorous "Boat Train," one of many Pogues songs about drinking bouts, and "London You're a Lady," a gruffly sentimental portrait of the band's hometown. But songs such as "Lorelei," a sweeping folk-rock epic by guitarist Philip Chevron, and "Tombstone," multi-instrumentalist Jem Finer's darkly atmospheric portrayal of the aftermath of nuclear or environmental disaster, hold up nicely and expand the Pogues' possibilities. Until now, Stacy said, the Pogues had performed only once without MacGowan. The gap-toothed singer came down with pneumonia two hours before a show in Sweden a few years ago and the rest of the band carried on after girding itself at the bar. "It was a complete mess because our attitude was 'what the hell.' We were quite a shambles that night," Stacy recalled. "We got totally looped before we went on stage. It was one of those nights. It all seemed to have its own logic. And the audience didn't mind." With or without MacGowan, Stacy said, the Pogues' early image as lovable on-stage inebriates no longer applies and hasn't in some time. "That image, we're not entirely blameless for that," he acknowledged. "But it's something we weren't trying to project.