U2 stands as the most prominent and influential Irish music act ever to emerge. The Pogues didn’t actually originate from Ireland—they began in London—but they arguably spoke to Irish identity more vividly than any other group in history. U2 and the Pogues share a long history, having toured together through the 1980s and 1990s. In 2023, while U2 were performing a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas, they paid homage to Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan, who had died just days earlier, with a live take on “A Rainy Night In Soho.” Now, a Shane MacGowan tribute is on the horizon, and U2 have unveiled their rendition of another Pogues classic.
The forthcoming collection, 20th Century Paddy – The Songs Of Shane MacGowan, is slated for release this autumn and features appearances from Tom Waits, the Jesus And Mary Chain, Primal Scream, the Dropkick Murphys, the late Glen Hansard, and the pairing of Hozier with Jessie Buckley. We previously shared Bruce Springsteen’s interpretation of “A Rainy Night In Soho,” and now U2 have offered their take on “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,” the Pogues’ rousing single from 1988.
In the meantime, U2 recently dropped surprise EPs Days Of Ash and Easter Lily along with the Martin Garrix collaboration “Fireflies.” Their version of “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” diverges from those experiments; it stands as the most joyful and stripped-down performance the band has delivered in quite a while. It genuinely sounds like they’re having fun here. Here’s a press-release excerpt from The Edge:
Shane MacGowan lived with paradoxes—and that is where the truth of him resided. He could be precise about what truly mattered while remaining wonderfully careless about everything else. If that feels like a kind of performance, perhaps it was. Yet as Oscar Wilde noted, “a mask tells us more than a face.”
The crooked grin, the wild energy, the old-Ireland intonations weren’t disguises so much as signals. They placed him within a lineage that stretched from the pub raconteur to the punk stage. Somewhere between John B. Keane and the Clash, he found a voice that felt both ancient and utterly of its era.
What he did with that voice was extraordinary. He wove threads that shouldn’t have quite fit—folk tradition, political memory, gallows humor, romance—and made them feel inevitable.
His songs seem as if they’ve always existed. He immersed himself in them and, in doing so, created the Shane MacGowan myth. The specifics of his life hardly surface, but you learn exactly what mattered to him. And that’s the point.
Below, you can hear U2’s take on “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,” alongside the Pogues’ original video.
20th Century Paddy – The Songs Of Shane MacGowan is due for release on November 13 via Rubyworks.
