Brian Hiatt
Contact Brian Hiatt on X View all posts by Brian Hiatt October 30, 2026 Add us as a Google Preferred Source
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Glen Hansard considered Shane MacGowan a friend and major influence. Luciano Viti/Getty Images; Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images Towards the end of an October 2024 concert at The Wiltern in Los Angeles, Glen Hansard brought Pogues accordion player James Fearnley to the stage for a few songs, including a ferocious cover of the Pogues‘ 1988 classic “Bottle of Smoke.” In the wake of Hansard’s death in July, a recording of that performance was released today as a single from the upcoming 20th Century Paddy: The Songs of Shane MacGowan. That all-star album, due Nov. 20, pays tribute to Pogues frontman MacGowan, who died in 2023 — other contributors range from Bruce Springsteen to U2 to Dropkick Murphys.
Hansard served as musical director for MacGowan’s funeral, and performed the Pogues’ “A Rainy Night in SoHo” at the ceremony. ”[MacGowan would] say, ‘find the truth in that lyric,'” Hansard said on Ireland’s Late Late Show around that time. ”He would push you … and he had that honesty and a kind of fearlessness about the work. And I think he’s told me to eff off about a hundred times. And yet I’d get a Christmas card, I’d get a birthday card, he sent me a painting.”
