Red Roses For Me (40th Anniversary)

After four decades, ‘Red Roses For Me’ is still celebrated as a groundbreaking debut album from an unlikely group of supposed ne’er-do-wells from London’s Kings Cross in the convulsive aftermath of the re-election of the Thatcher government. The album mashes traditional songs and instrumentals – about death and drink, love and London – with those of frontman Shane MacGowan’s – and all fuelled by the punk ethos.