If I Should Fall From Grace With God

If I Should Fall from Grace with God is a 1987 album by The Pogues. It reached number 3 in the UK album charts. The album was a departure from previous Pogues albums, which had focused on an Irish folk/punk hybrid, combining musical radicalism with strong commercial appeal. On If I Should Fall From Grace with God several more genres were added to this mixture, including Jazz, Spanish folk and Middle Eastern folk. The adding of Spanish and Middle Eastern sounds was a sign of things to come; on later albums such as 1990’s Hell’s Ditch these would become the defining sound. On this album, however, it was very much Irish folk to the fore, especially on songs such as the title track, “Bottle of Smoke”, “South Australia”, “Lullaby of London” and “Sit Down By The Fire”, and the rendition of the traditional jig “The Lark in the Morning” as the coda to “Turkish Song Of The Damned”. These songs were more typical of the earlier Pogues albums, mostly fast and heavily textured. The album was also the first by the band to utilize a complete drum kit.

Also prominent on the album were the ballads “Thousands are Sailing”, “The Broad Majestic Shannon” and especially the Christmas hit, a duet with Kirsty MacColl, “Fairytale of New York”. “Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six” showed a passionate and angry political side to their music