A fairytale of new teeth for Shane of the Pogues
IT has become one of the staples of Christmas entertainment... the Pogues performing Fairytale of New York, complete with the wrecked teeth of Shane MacGowan.
But while the singer’s 1987 duet with Kirsty MacColl is as popular as ever, the disastrous dentistry is now nowhere to be seen.
Decades after addiction to drugs and alcohol began destroying his teeth, MacGowan has had a full set of implants. The singer, who will be 58 on Christmas Day, said he has always wanted to fix his damaged mouth but it was not until his girlfriend suggested he look into more radical measures that he realised it could be done.
The procedure involved a series of consultations and six operations over the course of six months. The new teeth are now changing MacGowan’s life. They have helped him to reclaim his unique singing voice – because he can now ‘phrase things properly’ – and also allowed him to eat his first apple in at least three decades while sitting in the dentist’s office after the operation.
According to MacGowan’s girlfriend of 30 years, Victoria Mary Clarke, the teeth are based on those of the actor Michael Fassbender. But never one to play entirely by the rules, the singer insisted on one being gold, which his partner has described as ‘sexy’.
The final procedure was completed on December 7, and the singer’s journey to a new smile is chronicled in a documentary Shane MacGowan: A Wreck Reborn, which airs on Sky Arts tomorrow. To help him through the discomfort, MacGowan hired a pranic healer, a form of alternative medicine that claims to ‘balance, harmonise and transform the body’s energy processes’. He has described it as ‘better than any drug he’s ever taken’.