Red Roses for Me

The first album was produced by Stan Brennan, who had managed the Nipple Erectors/The Nips and the Rocks Off Records shop in London. It reached number 89 in the UK. Roughly half of it is standards, including The Auld Triangle, alongside MacGowan's Boys from the County Hell. On the cover the band sit in front of a picture of John F. Kennedy in the JFK Hall at the London Irish Centre in Camden, with Ranken in an inset.

Melody Maker wrote that the Pogues were a gesture aimed at all things fashionable in 1984. Mark Deming of AllMusic called it good and rowdy fun but said that the next two albums would show the band capable of a lot more. A 2024 anniversary edition added a 2013 remix, earlier bonus tracks and twelve sessions recorded for BBC radio, including John Peel sessions from 1984.