Rum Sodomy & the Lash

Costello was originally hired, through his manager Jake Riviera, to produce two songs for a single, A Pair of Brown Eyes and Sally MacLennane. After recording at Elephant Studios in Wapping he agreed to produce the entire album. Chevron later said the Pogues needed to be facilitated more than produced, and that recording the band as live as possible, with plenty of natural acoustic presence in the instruments, was quite revolutionary in 1985. According to Fearnley's memoir, reported by Pitchfork, Costello played acoustic guitar on Dirty Old Town and mandolin on A Pair of Brown Eyes, and suggested key changes on The Old Main Drag, but mostly stayed out of the way. Tommy Keane played uilleann pipes, Henry Benagh fiddle and Dick Cuthell French horn. O'Riordan sings I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day and Stacy sings Jesse James.

The title comes from a remark attributed to Winston Churchill about naval tradition, and drummer Andrew Ranken suggested it. The cover is an altered version of Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa with the band's heads, painted by Peter Mennim, in place of the figures. The album reached 13 in the UK, 17 in New Zealand, 39 in Sweden and 89 in Australia. Melody Maker's Adam Sweeting called it music to hang on to other people by. Mark Deming of AllMusic said it was the first Pogues record to prove they were a great band and not just a great idea for a band. Q placed it at number 93 on its 2000 list of the 100 greatest British albums, Rolling Stone ranked it 440 in 2012, and Pitchfork named it the 67th best album of the 1980s. A 2005 reissue added six tracks, including the whole of the Poguetry in Motion EP.