Hell's Ditch is the fifth full-length album by The Pogues, and the last to feature frontman Shane MacGowan as a member. Released in 1990, the album continued the group's slow departure from Irish music, giving more empahsis to rock and straight folk rock, and forsaking their earlier staples of traditional compositions almost entirely. MacGowan parted with the band after the release of the album, partly due to problems with his abuse of alcohol and other drugs, which had for years been leading to deterioration of his abilities as a performer and his reliability in general. The problems are evident on the album itself, as MacGowan slurs his way through most of the tracks with little of the energy and enthusiasm that was so apparent on the earlier albums.

Several of the songs on the album have Asian themes, in sound or in content, notably "Summer in Siam", "The House of Gods", and "Sayonara", although only the latter has strong elements of a noticably far-eastern tune. The song "Lorca's Novena" draws on MacGowan's affinity for Spain (particularly Almeria, which he discovered years earlier when filming Straight to Hell), and one of it's famous poets, Federico García Lorca. The song tells of the poet's murder by Francisco Franco's Nationalist supporters in the Spanish Civil War, and how his body, never having been recovered, was said to have walked away. "The Wake of the Medusa" is a first person narrative inspired by Théodore Géricault's painting The Raft of the Medusa, which appeared on the cover of the band's second album, Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash. The title track is typically MacGowan in its vulgar description of the squalid life in a prison nicknamed "Hell's Ditch".

The album was produced by The Clash's Joe Strummer, who later served as a temporary replacement for MacGowan when the band went on tour.

Track listing

1. The Sunnyside of the Street (MacGowan/Finer)
2. Sayonara (MacGowan)
3. The Ghost of a Smile (MacGowan)
4. Hell's Ditch (MacGowan/Finer)
5. Lorca's Novena (MacGowan)
6. Summer in Siam (MacGowan)
7. Rain Street (MacGowan)
8. Rainbow Man (Woods )
9. The Wake of the Medusa (Finer)
10. The House of Gods (MacGowan)
11. 5 Green Queens & Jean (MacGowan/Finer)
12. Maidrin Rua (Traditional)
13. Six to Go (Woods)

Personnel

• Shane MacGowan - vocals
• Jem Finer - banjo, mandola, hurdy-gurdy, saxophone, guitar
• Spider Stacy - tin whistle, vocals, harmonica
• James Fearnley - accordion, piano, guitar, violin, sitar, kalimba
• Terry Woods - mandolin, guitar, cittern, vocals, concertina, auto harp
• Philip Chevron - guitar
• Darryl Hunt - bass guitar
• Andrew Rankin - drums