Body of an American

The Pogues are not exactly a folk band in the traditional sense, but they took the tradition of rowdy, whisky-soaked Irish fighting songs and combined it with punk rock back when punk rock was still new- long before groups like Flogging Molly or the Dropkick Murphys ever existed.

Pogues singer Shane MacGowan was an early follower of the Sex Pistols, but he had cut his teeth on the folk music of his native Ireland, and after wrapping up his punk band (The Nips) he got together a number of London Irish musicians and started the Pogues. MacGowan is not only an entertaining performer with a growly, gritty voice, he is also a brilliant lyricist, a poet of the back alley and the gutter.

Eventually, his personal devotion to alcoholic self-destruction put an end to the Pogues, but not before the band went through a number of odd and interesting experiments, combining their style of punked-out Irish folk with jazz, Middle Eastern and Spanish themes.

“Body of an American” is one of their earlier and more distinctly Irish-sounding pieces, telling the tale of an Irish-American boxer and barroom fighter named Big Jim Dwyer and his drunken, brawling wake. MacGowan has the rare ability to transform ordinary lives into epic poetry. I don't know if this particular song is about a real person or not, but there must have been a lot of men like Big Jim Dwyer during the years of working-class Irish immigration to the United States, and MacGowan's Big Jim is the archetype of them all.