Reports of Shane MacGowan’s demise – artistic, physical, mental or otherwise – are always exaggerated, usually as a result of how the singer comports himself in public. Any reporter has to wonder how much of the man’s dissipated act is just that: a put on, a shtick. Speak informally with him about music and you hear someone talking with considerable articulacy about a very ephemeral subject – or at least as articulately as can be expected of someone with no teeth and a mouthful of Japanese food.

Dirty Old Town/The Road To Paradise is out now on RMG.

Photography by Liam Sweeney.