U2 have paid a special tribute to Shane MacGowan after sharing a cover of The Pogues' track, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
The band have released this cover ahead of the upcoming arrival of their tribute album, 20th Century - The Songs Of Shane MacGowan, which arrives on November 13 via Rubyworks.
This album's title comes from a project that MacGowan had himself long envisioned, and also includes covers from artists like Hozier, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, The Libertines, and the late Glen Hansard. It was also curated by Shane's wife, Victoria Mary Clarke and his sister, Siobhan MacGowan.
It is available across digital streaming platforms, a physical format, including a 2CD, a Deluxe 3LP and a deluxe Vinyl with a 60 page book of archival photographs and liner notes.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, had featured on The Pogues' album, Hell's Ditch in 1990, the last album to feature Shane MacGowan as lead singer.
Speaking about MacGowan, U2 guitarist, The Edge said: "Shane MacGowan was full of contradictions - and that’s where the truth of him lived. He could be precise about what mattered and gloriously careless about everything else".
He continued: "If that sounds like a kind of performance, maybe it was. But as Oscar Wilde put it, 'a mask tells us more than a face'.
"The crooked grin, the wildness, the old-Ireland inflections - they weren’t disguises so much as signals. A way of placing himself in a lineage that ran from the pub storyteller to the punk stage", he added. "Somewhere between John B. Keane and The Clash, he found a voice that felt both ancient and completely of its time".
"What he did with that voice was remarkable. He pulled together threads that shouldn’t quite fit - folk tradition, political memory, gallows humour, romance - and made them sound inevitable".
"His songs sound like they have always existed. He dissolved himself into them and, in the process, created the Shane MacGowan myth. The details of his life barely surface, but you learn exactly what he cared about. And that’s the point". (All quotes according to RTÉ).
It was also confirmed that 50% of all artists royalties from this album will go towards the Dublin Simon Community.
News of this comes after Shane MacGowan's father, Maurice passed away aged 96 following a short illness. More on this here.
