Nick Cave remembers Shane MacGowan in new obituary: “I was a fan, pure and simple, and I will always be that”

nme.com:

Nick Cave has written a new obituary for the late Pogues frontman, Shane MacGowan. As a contribution to The Observer’s Obituaries of 2023 series, Cave wrote a new tribute to his late friend, marking the second time the post-punk musician has written about MacGowan following his passing.

The heartfelt piece traces the origins of their friendship, when NME invited him, MacGowan and The Fall’s Mark E. Smith for a “summit meeting”.While Cave openly acknowledged MacGowan’s relentless drinking, he also noted his enviable and effortless creativity.

Recalling an instance where he became concerned that MacGowan was not writing songs, he “crawled across the floor and started rooting in the pile of rubbish until he found a scrap of paper”, on which he wrote the words to ‘St.

John of Gods’, off his 1997 album with The Popes, ‘The Crock of Gold’.“To me, his songs were such precious things, deep works of art, really, but he didn’t treat them like that,” Cave wrote. “While I laboured away at my desk, day after day, to produce what I could, Shane’s words were delivered to him on a beer tray with a whiskey chaser.”Cave also commented on MacGowan’s voice, calling it a “perfect vehicle for his chaotic, poetic soul”.