this period The Pogues' record label Stiff Records went into administration: as the label still owned the rights to all Pogues recordings, the group were unable to record any new material until they were released from their contract with Stiff. During 1986, the group occupied themselves by guesting on a cover version of "The Irish Rover" with the Dubliners, and taking part in Alex Cox's comedy action film Straight to Hell, shot in southern Spain and also starring the Clash's frontman Joe Strummer. The situation with Stiff was resolved in early 1987 and The Pogues were finally free to begin recording a new album. After recording some demos in Abbey Road Studios in March, the group entered London's RAK Studios on 9 May 1987 to begin work properly on their delayed third album. The band had chosen Darryl Hunt, a former bandmate of O'Riordan in Pride of the Cross as her replacement on bass, and multi-instrumentalist Terry Woods was also brought in to add his expertise on a range of instruments. Phil Chevron, who had deputised for Jem Finer on banjo on a previous Pogues tour while Finer had taken a break to be with his wife and new-born child, was recruited full-time to the band as its permanent guitarist after frontman Shane MacGowan had decided he wanted to concentrate solely on singing in live performance. The group had decided to use Steve Lillywhite to produce their new record. Finer later said, "I think it was as exciting for him as it was for us because he'd never worked with a band live in the studio". Composition and writing The title for "Turkish Song of the Damned" actually came first and inspired the song's storyline and the music's Middle Eastern influence, rather than the other way round, as Chevron revealed to the NME: "We were in Germany and this magazine had an article about The Damned – the B-side of one of their singles is called 'The Turkey Song' [the B-side of their 1979 single "I Just Can't Be Happy Today"] but the mag called it 'The Turkish Song of the Damned' – it was too good a title to overlook". MacGowan explained the lyrics as being a mixture of pirate and ghost story "about a guy on a Turkish island who deserted a sinking ship with all the money and all his mates went down – I'm not totally