Shane MacGowan, former lead singer of Irish punk rock band The Pogues, has died at the age of 65.
Irish rock figure, Shane MacGowan is dead. The former singer of the punk rock band The Pogues was only 65 years old. The announcement was made on Instagram by his wife, Victoria Mary Clark, this Thursday, November 30 at midday. “I don’t know how to say it, so I’m just going to say it. Shane (…) left to join Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother, Therese,” she wrote in a long message posted on the social network.
She adds: “I am lucky beyond words to have met him and loved him and to have been loved so unconditionally by him (…). You will live in my heart forever (…). You were the world for me.” If his wife does not specify the circumstances of Shane MacGowan’s death, he had been hospitalized several times last summer and would have died after a long illness. According to the British press, including the Daily Mail, the rocker was suffering from viral encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, aggravated by shingles.
At the beginning of November, Victoria Mary Clark posted a photo of Shane MacGowan in his hospital bed, increasing concerns about the artist’s state of health.
Born on December 25, 1957 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, to Irish parents, Shane MacGowan reinvented British rock, with the group The Pogues, particularly popular in the 1980s and 1990s. The “magnificent loser” or the ” “celestial charlot”, as he was nicknamed, had also hit the headlines throughout his career because of his various addictions to alcohol or drugs of all kinds, but also with his recognizable teeth and ears. Made popular in 1984 by their songs – Dirty Old Town will probably remain the most popular – mixing Irish ballads with punk rock, the Pogues first broke up in 1996, before reforming from 2001 to 2014.
The announcement of the death of Shane MacGowan, tortured leader of the Pogues, sparked a wave of emotion on social networks. “Shane will be remembered as one of music’s greatest songwriters,” Irish President Michael D. Higgins wrote in a statement, referring to his songs as “perfectly crafted poems.”