U2 Rocks On Pogues Favorite ‘Yeah, Yeah’

U2 is keeping its Shane MacGowan connection alive with a new recording of “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,” the late Pogues songwriter’s high-energy 1988 track. Released today (Aug. 28) by Rubyworks, the band’s driving, arena-sized interpretation is a standout from the previously announced, forthcoming tribute album 20th Century Paddy – The Songs of Shane MacGowan, due Nov. 13.

The cover extends a relationship between U2 and MacGowan, who are all of Irish descent. After MacGowan’s December 2023 death at the age of 65 after years of poor health, U2 performed the Pogues’ “A Rainy Day in Soho” acoustically in his honor. Frontman Bono was no stranger to “A Rainy Day in Soho,” having performed it at MacGowan’s 60th birthday bash in Dublin in 2018.

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Guitarist the Edge offers an expansive explanation of that appeal, describing MacGowan as an artist “full of contradictions—and that’s where the truth of him lived.” He continues, “He could be precise about what mattered and gloriously careless about everything else. If that sounds like a kind of performance, maybe it was. But as Oscar Wilde put it, ‘a mask tells us more than a face.’”

“The crooked grin, the wildness, the old-Ireland inflections — they weren’t disguises so much as signals,” he adds. “A way of placing himself in a lineage that ran from the pub storyteller to the punk stage. Somewhere between John B. Keane and the Clash, he found a voice that felt both ancient and completely of its time.”

“What he did with that voice was remarkable,” he continues. “He pulled together threads that shouldn’t quite fit — folk tradition, political memory, gallows humor, romance — and made them sound inevitable. His songs sound like they have always existed. He dissolved himself into them and, in the process, created the Shane MacGowan myth. The details of his life barely surface, but you learn exactly what he cared about. And that’s the point.”

20th Centtury Paddy was announced in March with Bruce Springsteen’s rendition of “A Rainy Night in Soho” and will also feature contributions from Tom Waits, MacGowan’s former Pogues bandmates, Hozier and Jessie Buckley, Johnny Depp and Imelda May, David Gray, Dropkick Murphys, the late Glen Hansard, the Jesus & Mary Chain, Kate Moss, Primal Scream, Steve Earle, Bob Geldof and the Libertines.

Half of the artist royalties from the album will be donated to Dublin Simon Community, which provides housing and medical care for people experiencing homelessness.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.