Rum, Sodomy and the Lash

Probably The Pogues finest hour

Rum, Sodomy and The Lash is the The Pogues second studio album, released in August 1985. It is a rumbustious, raucous celebration of life within a folk tradition. The majority of the songs are written by frontman and lead vocalist, Shane MacGowan, although a couple of traditional folk songs are thrown into the mix, along with Ewan MacColl’s Dirty Old Town and the closing anti war epic, Eric Bogle’s And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda. It was produced by singer songwriter, Elvis Costello who said he wanted

to capture them in their dilapidated glory before some more professional producer fucked them up

During the recording of the album, Costello met the band’s bass player, Cait O’Riordan and married her a year later. They divorced in 2002. You can hear her on lead vocals on the track, I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Everyday. Originally she was down to duet with Shane MacGowan for the song, A Fairytale of New York, from their follow-up album, If I Should Fall from Grace with God, before it was given to Kirsty MacColl.

Filled with the anarchic exuberance of a punk aesthetic, the album is the bastard, rebellious offspring to Fairport Convention’s Liege and Lief of 16 years earlier. It is fast and crazy both in its…