If I Should Fall from Grace with God (1988)

If I Should Fall from Grace with God is the third studio album by Celtic folk-punk band the Pogues, released on 18 January 1988. Released in the wake of their biggest hit single, "Fairytale of New York", If I Should Fall from Grace with God also became the band's best-selling album, peaking at number three on the UK Albums Chart and reaching the top ten in several other countries.

If I Should Fall from Grace with God saw the arrival of three new members: bassist Darryl Hunt replaced Cait O'Riordan, while Philip Chevron joined on guitar and Terry Woods played cittern and other instruments. Woods and Chevron (the only two members of The Pogues actually born in Ireland) contributed the first original songs to a Pogues album not written by singer Shane MacGowan or banjo player Jem Finer, and the album also saw the band begin to move away from their Irish folk/punk roots and start to incorporate musical styles from other parts of the world, most notably Turkey and Spain. Many of the songs' lyrics return to familiar themes in Pogues songs such as those moving out of Ireland or returning to the nation, but also touch on new themes such as political issues and family relationships.

Critically acclaimed, If I Should Fall from Grace with God marked the high point of the band's commercial success. Finer called the record "a very cohesive album that drew on a lot of styles. Everything came together and it was very focused. That [album is] really the creative peak for me, in terms of the whole band being on a wavelength."

Background

The Pogues had received acclaim for their previous album Rum Sodomy & the Lash, released in August 1985, and had begun 1986 on a high note as they embarked upon a successful tour of the US, their first in that country, and released the Poguetry in Motion EP which became their first top 40 hit in the UK. However, the relationship with their producer Elvis Costello was deteriorating, and tensions were further heightened by his romantic involvement with the band's bass player Cait O'Riordan. The group parted ways with Costello, and after increasingly erratic behaviour which included not turning up to play shows, O'Riordan also left the band in October 1986. During this period The Pogues' record label Stiff Records went into administration: as the label still owned the rights to all Pogues recordings, the group were unable to record any new material until they were released from their contract with Stiff. During 1986, the group occupied themselves by guesting on a cover version of "The Irish Rover" with the Dubliners, and taking part in Alex Cox's comedy action film Straight to Hell, shot in southern Spain and also starring the Clash's frontman Joe Strummer.

The situation with Stiff was resolved in early 1987 and The Pogues were finally free to begin recording a new album. After recording some demos in Abbey Road Studios in March, the group entered London's RAK Studios on 9 May 1987 to begin work properly on their delayed third album. The band had chosen Darryl Hunt, a former bandmate of O'Riordan in Pride of the Cross, as her replacement on bass, and multi-instrumentalist Terry Woods (ex-Steeleye Span) was also brought in to add his expertise on a range of instruments. Phil Chevron, who had deputised for Jem Finer on banjo on a previous Pogues tour while Finer had taken a break to be with his wife and new-born child, was recruited full-time to the band as its permanent guitarist after frontman Shane MacGowan had decided he wanted to concentrate solely on singing in live performance.

The group had decided to use Steve Lillywhite to produce their new record. Finer later said, "I think it was as exciting for him as it was for us because he'd never worked with a band live in the studio".

Composition and writing

The title for "Turkish Song of the Damned" actually came first and inspired the song's storyline and the music's Middle Eastern influence, rather than the other way round, as Chevron revealed to the NME: "We were in Germany and this magazine had an article about The Damned – the B-side of one of their singles is called 'The Turkey Song' [the B-side of their 1979 single "I Just Can't Be Happy Today"] but the mag called it 'The Turkish Song of the Damned' – it was too good a title to overlook". MacGowan explained the lyrics as being a mixture of pirate and ghost story "about a guy on a Turkish island who deserted a sinking ship with all the money and all his mates went down – I'm not totally sure about this – he's haunted and he's dancing around with all this Turkish music in his brain ... Then his best mate comes back, and all the crew, to drag him back down to hell or wherever they are." The song ends with a rendition of the traditional Irish jig "The Lark in the Morning".