There's an art to playing live. It's a great feeling. It's indescribable. It's what I love. I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it.
Shane MacGowanIrish music is guts, balls and feet music, yeah? It's frenetic dance music, yeah? Or it's impossibly sad like slow music, yeah? Yeah? And it also handles all sorts of subjects, from rebel songs to comical songs about sex, you know what I mean, yeah? Which I don't think people realize how much innuendo there is in Irish music.
Shane MacGowanI hate the bloody highways. I hate hamburgers, I hate Greyhound buses. I'd have liked to have been in America during the Jazz Age, or the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Shane MacGowanI'm not so much a rock star, d'ya know what I mean? I play Irish music. There's really no age when you stop playing Irish music. Even if I retired from playing onstage, I'd still be singing in pubs.
Shane MacGowanWhen I'm writing a song, it gives me more actual pleasure to hear someone else sing it than do it meself.
Shane MacGowanI'm just following the Irish tradition of songwriting, the Irish way of life, the human way of life. Cram as much pleasure into life, and rail against the pain you have to suffer as a result. Or scream and rant with the pain, and wait for it to be taken away with beautiful pleasure . . .
Shane MacGowan