Shane MacGowan finished final album before his death, collaborator reveals

15-track album is set to include both covers and MacGowan originals

Shane MacGowan finished recording a new solo album before his death last week, according to a new report.

The 15-track record features both original songs and covers. It was produced in collaboration with Irish band Cronin, and also includes appearances from MacGowan’s former The Pogues bandmates Spider Stacey and Jem Finer.

MacGowan spent the last seven years of his life working on the album, and Cronin frontman Johnny Cronin told The Irish Sun that the singer and songwriter had “a fine voice right to the end”.

“Shane was ill but he wanted to keep working,” said Cronin. “I was driving up to Dublin to record his vocals at his house.”

Cronin, who is bandmates with his own brother Mick, added: “We are beyond devastated to lose our friend, the only consolation we have is that Shane had finished all his vocals for this record.”

“Shane was always in charge when we went into the studio, he was telling us what to play and where to play it,” Cronin continued. “If I was going to try and describe it, it’s like the recordings Johnny Cash did with producer Rick Rubin at the end of his career.”

(Brian Lawless/PA) (PA Wire)

The album is set to include original songs such as “Gino’s Place” and covers such as the traditional ballad “Wild Mountain Thyme” and a musical reading of WB Yeats’ “Down By The Sally Gardens”.

“Shane came up with some beautiful songs as well as (recording) some cover versions,” said Cronin. “We spent seven years working on this with Shane, and he brought in people like Spider Stacey and Jem Finer to play on some of the songs as well as Waterboys fiddle player Steve Wickham and musical duo Foster and Allen.”

Cronin added that while he believes there will be “worldwide interest” in the posthumous album, there is no release schedule in place and no label attached to release it. “Shane wanted this record out, so it will come out,” said Cronin. “But it’s not something we are thinking about right now.”

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He recalled seeing MacGowan for the last time just a few days before his death. “Shane was very weak but smiling and still able to have the craic,” he recalled. “We sat at his bedside and reminisced.”

Following MacGowan’s death last Thursday, The Independent’s Dorian Lynskey paid tribute to “a chaotic hellraiser and a natural storyteller who could give you a whole life in a handful of lines”.