MacGowan had recently been discharged from the hospital where he had been staying since being diagnosed with the disease. (UCR)
Bruce Springsteen paid him a visit ahead of three sold-out concerts in Dublin, last summer.
"He's the man, you know?" Springsteen told popular Irish television host Ryan Tubridy. "I truly believe ... that a hundred years from now, most of us will be forgotten, but I do believe that Shane's music is going to be remembered and sung. It's just deep in the nature of it."
The Pogues recorded five albums with MacGowan beginning in 1984, brilliantly combining traditional Irish music with punk rock. He was fired in the early '90s during a ferocious bout with alcoholism, but not before the Pogues' duet with Kirsty MacColl on "Fairytale in New York" had become a timeless classic. The single reached No. 1 on the Irish charts, No. 2 in the U.K. and the Top 10 in Norway and New Zealand.
"In Irish pubs where they still sing, 'Fairytale' has become as much a standard as 'Danny Boy' or 'The Fields of Athenry,'" MacGowan once told The Guardian. "So I'm like the writers of all those traditional standards, except I'm not anonymous. Or dead."
MacGowan was diagnosed with viral encephalitis in late 2022, receiving several rounds of medical care while fighting this rare life-threatening condition which causes brain swelling. He'd just joined TikTok. Doctors were initially upbeat, and MacGowan quickly re-emerged in January to wish fans a happy new year.
