U2 Covers Pogues Song for Shane MacGowan

U2 have shared a cover of The Pogues' 1988 single "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah." The track is for the upcoming Shane MacGowan tribute compilation 20th Century Paddy - The Songs Of Shane MacGowan, which is scheduled for release on November 13 via Rubyworks, according to Stereogum.

The two bands have a long history. They toured together in the 1980s and 1990s. Last year, during their Las Vegas Sphere residency, U2 performed a live cover of "A Rainy Night In Soho" shortly after MacGowan's death.

The Tribute Album

The new compilation will feature contributions from a range of artists. These include Tom Waits, the Jesus And Mary Chain, Primal Scream, the Dropkick Murphys, the late Glen Hansard, and the duo of Hozier and Jessie Buckley. Bruce Springsteen's version of "A Rainy Night In Soho" was previously released.

U2's recent output includes the surprise EPs Days Of Ash and Easter Lily and a collaboration with Martin Garrix titled "Fireflies." Their Pogues cover is a departure from that material.

The Sound of the Cover

Described by Stereogum as "the most joyous and stripped-down thing I've heard from U2 in a long time," the cover suggests the band is having fun. It does not resemble their recent electronic-influenced work.

The Edge, U2's guitarist, offered a statement about Shane MacGowan. He called the late singer "full of contradictions" and said that's where his truth resided. "He could be precise about what mattered and gloriously careless about everything else," The Edge said, quoting a press release.

He described MacGowan's persona as a performance that revealed more than it concealed. "The crooked grin, the wildness, the old-Ireland inflections, they weren’t disguises so much as signals," The Edge stated. He placed MacGowan's voice in a lineage between pub storytellers and punk, somewhere between John B. Keane and the Clash.

MacGowan's songwriting pulled together disparate threads. The Edge credited him with weaving folk tradition, political memory, gallows humour, and romance into songs that felt inevitable. "His songs sound like they have always existed," he said.

The guitarist argued that MacGowan dissolved himself into his music, creating a myth where the details of his life were less important than what he cared about. "And that’s the point," The Edge concluded.

The article includes links to both U2's new cover and the original Pogues music video for "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah."