If I Should Fall From Grace With God by The Pogues

If I Should Fall from Grace with God, the Pogues' third studio album, came out on Island in 1988 riding the wake of "Fairytale of New York", the MacGowan duet with Kirsty MacColl that had just reached number two in the UK at Christmas 1987. Steve Lillywhite produced, and the lineup had been shaken up: Darryl Hunt took over bass from Cait O'Riordan, Philip Chevron joined on guitar and Terry Woods brought cittern and more.

Woods and Chevron, the only members actually born in Ireland, wrote the first original songs on a Pogues album that didn't come from Shane MacGowan or Jem Finer, and the band's Irish folk-punk started roaming, picking up flavors from Turkey and Spain. The songs still circle leaving Ireland and coming home, but they also take on politics and family. It was their best-selling album, number three on the UK chart, and Finer later called it the band's creative peak.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.