THE WORMS CRAWL IN AND THE WORMS CRAWL OUT

If I Should Fall From Grace With God (or IISFFGWG, as the kids call it) is probably The Pogues strongest album as a band, but through all the tightness it is possible to hear Shane’s battered muse occasionally cry “Uncle.”

Nothing here rises quite to the level of The Body of an American or Sally MacLennane, but, to paraphrase Lou Reed, at this point Shane could shit other people’s diamonds.

So is Bottle of Smoke just willfully profane and chugged up as hell? Well, yeah, but then there’s this observation: “But the money still gleams in my hand like a light.”

And while Fairytale of New York has reached a kind of anti-standard status, if you look closely, the ache is there:

“I could’ve been someone,” he says.
“Well, so could anyone,” she shoots back.

People write entire novels/plays/operas trying to convey what’s in those two lines.

Birmingham Six is righteously pissed, and Lullaby of London is righteous. The Broad Majestic Shannon embraces Irish fiddle-faddle while simultaneously giving it the lie (“For it's stupid to laugh and it's useless to bawl/About a rusty tin can and an old hurley ball”).

The cracks were showing, sure, but in some ways they just lent a little extra character to the whole affair.