This album is, quite simply, a bar party. It starts with everyone cheerful, but still pretty sober (the title track). We get into storytelling and betting ("Turkish Song of the Damned," "Bottle of Smoke"). We all get a bit sentimental (the hit song "Fairytale of New York," "Thousands are Sailing") but soon get over it ("South Australia," "Fiesta"). Everyone spends the rest of the evening being happy and reminiscing ("Lullaby of London," "The Broad Majestic Shannon") until, with a feeling that something fun that you'll never be able to replicate has just ended, everyone departs for the sweet hereafter ("Worms").

OK, in reality, everyone departs for a hangover the next day, but this is an album, remember? And what an album! This is pure punk-rock fury, channeled into bodhrans, fiddles and accordions, and nothing could be finer.

The album is best known for "Fairytale of New York," one of the best Christmas songs ever and certainly one of the funniest. But the rest of the album is wonderful, too, and often makes me want to take out my Irish ancestry on the people downstairs (I'm a bad dancer). Some of the standouts include "Turkish Song of the Damned," an excellent little revenge tale, and "Lullaby of London," a lovely blessing for a child or loved one.

But the rest of the album is still wonderful, including the instrumental tracks. "Metropolis," for example, is a blending of jazz and a more traditional Celtic sound, which ends in the two styles integrating to form a clever musical metaphor.

The Pogues were originally known as Pogue Mahone, which is an Anglicization of the Irish "pog mo thoin," meaning "kiss my arse," and this attitude shows. Many of the songs have a political cast to them, especially "Thousands are Sailing" and "Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six." The former is a rebellion against the rather shabby treatment of the Irish by the English and the necessity of immigration to America, while the latter protests the arrest and holding of several men wrongly accused of terrorism.

Unlike many albums, however, If I Should Fall never suffers from the dreaded "too much politic, not enough music" syndrome. It'd be hard for this album to fall from grace with anyone.

by Theo deRoth
Rambles.NET
15 April 2006