Words that echo down the years

From MacGowan to Nureyev, all of the artistic heavyweights had a brush with the acclaimed Horslips legend

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EAMON Carr could see the parallels.

Carr lifts the lid on the likes of Jack Charlton, Eartha Kitt, Malcolm McLaren, JP Donleavy, Brenda Fricker, Sheila Mooney and 'Mad' Frankie Fraser.

Injustice and resistance are themes that emerge again and again.

Among the collection is a November 1989 interview with Shane MacGowan which addressed the pressures he was under at the time and hinted at unrest within The Pogues.

ADRIFT

"Listening back now, the game was up. But I didn't know that," he says. "They dropped Frank (Murray) as manager a few months after the interview. So that wouldn't have happened overnight.

"That would have been brewing in the band, because a band like that, it's like a tanker trying to turn. It takes a while to get everything on board.

"I think Shane might've thought I knew more than I did because he probably thought I was close to Frank.

"So, in hindsight, some of the ques-tions might have felt a bit close to the bone. Then there was also his own posi-tion as a musician in the band."

Carr had known The Pogues frontman since MacGowan's time working on a record stall in Soho in the 1970s, and in the interview he questioned the singer about his drinking and if the music industry had sapped the band's spirit.

"They were working on Hell's Ditch," says Carr.