‘A Pair of Brown Eyes’: The Pogues classic they thought was “eternal”
From their inception, The Pogues were grounded in the Irish heritage and, through vocalist Shane MacGowan’s lyrical pen, immortalised and attributed the likes of the emigrant experience and artistic lineages of their home.
When it came time to record the band’s sophomore album, Rum, Sodomy & the Lash, MacGowan’s craft had elevated to new heights. He had always been informed by those he regarded as the greats in Irish literary history: James Joyce, of course, was a constant inspiration, alongside Frank O’Connor, Edna O’Brien, Brendan Behan, Flann O’Brien and more. In turn, MacGowan’s writing produced songs that could exist as novellas of their own and, with a uniquely empathetic perspective, could assume the emotional spectrum of his subjects. The songwriter’s approach came to life best when he played ‘A Pair of Brown Eyes’ for his bandmates, early in the recording sessions, immediately gripping in its poignancy.
The melody behind MacGowan’s ballad loosely stems from ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ (also known as ‘Will Ye Go Lassie Go’), a traditional folk song by Francis McPeake, written in 1957, that features a mandolin contribution from producer Elvis Costello. Its tale is told from the point of view of a World War I veteran, a blend of a war song and lovesick poetry. A scene from a pub sees a young man encounter the old veteran in contemplation of his life, soundtracked with a reference to Johnny Cash’s rendition of ‘A Thing Called Love’ (“And on the jukebox Johnny sang / About a thing called love”).
The scene paints a drunken haze of a memory, before abruptly switching to a battlefield scene of “blood and death ‘neath a screaming sky”. The arms and legs belonging to fallen soldiers surround MacGowan’s veteran, left only to pray for their lives or curse them entirely. He is left only to dream of the pair of brown eyes that belong to his lover, only to be met with heartache.
“But when we got back, labelled parts one to three,” MacGowan sings, “There was no pair of brown eyes waiting for me.” Glimpses of the young man, drunken and stumbling out of pubs and through the streets, mirror the veteran’s mind, both filled with loneliness and resentment for what once was and what could have been.
Upon hearing ‘A Pair of Brown Eyes’ for the first time, accordion player James Fearnley was stunned. “Musically, that song had a timeless, eternal vibe,” he told The Irish Post in 2013. “I really enjoyed the chords; it felt like there was a circular motion about the chord progression. The vocal melody was sublime, and there was this instrumental section which had a real purity about it. I found that very appealing.”
MacGowan’s lyrics, in contrast, were instantly intriguing, if not hard to decipher. “Against that music, you have lyrics which I found difficult to track; they were almost counter to the music, and that was very exciting,” Fearnley continues.
Adding, “He (MacGowan) would smash up an image in shards and rearrange it as a way to find the story. I love the way you have Shane as narrator and how he gets through the story of the song. There’s a jaded irony about it where he’s making light out of dismemberment and the horrors of war; I always like that about Shane’s songs–they pack an extra punch because he holds back the punch.”
Surely, MacGowan’s near-comical irony takes the song’s root of a breakup and tears it into a graphic, heart-wrenching story of loneliness and reflection, and can only work when done through his voice.
As recalled in The Quietus, when guitarist Spider Stacey first heard the song, his reaction was quoted as, “You sick fuck! Labelled parts one to three? What sort of a twisted, fucked-up sort of mind comes up with lyrics like that?” MacGowan simply responded, “Mine”. However shocking, ‘A Pair of Brown Eyes’ achieves the feat of bridging generations battered by war, a plight only understood by an unfortunate few.
The song infuses the storytelling tradition that guided so much of MacGowan’s writing, and the characters become communicators of lived experience. It resonates in its unflinching perspective, told from men who have fought and lived, and remain to tell their tales of yearning despite it all.
