To lose him the same year as Sinead O’Connor is particularly gutting. But I’m also just grateful I lived at the same time as him and how much joy and comfort and anger and love his music brought to me.

There was no one like him. No one.

Thank you, Shane.

I’d say if you can, give a listen to RAINY NIGHT IN SOHO today. (I prefer the version without the sax, personally.)

It’s one of the loveliest songs ever written - even had it read during our wedding.

I’d seen the man perform many times, even one time getting to meet him backstage at the House of Blues where he signed my Trainspotting shirt. (I usually don’t do such things, but it was before phones with cameras and he was kind of a god to me.)

My first play I named the characters after members of the Pogues, with the character based on me named Shane. My workspace is surrounded with Pogues albums. There was no greater joy than going to the Virgin Megastore and finding an imported Pogues CD I didn't know existed.

My life is not nearly as colorful as was his life or those lives detailed in his songs.

Yet Shane MacGowan’s lyrics ripped right into my soul, with stories of Irish immigrants, boxers, sex workers, writers, political prisoners, and obviously bickering romantic addicts on Christmas.