Fairytale of New York

This article is about the song. For the novel by J. P. Donleavy, see A Fairy Tale of New York.

"Fairytale of New York"
Song

"Fairytale of New York" is a song by the Irish rock group The Pogues, released in 1987 and featuring the British singer Kirsty MacColl. The song is an Irish folk style ballad, written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan, and featured on The Pogues' album If I Should Fall from Grace with God. The song features string arrangements by Fiachra Trench. It is frequently voted the Number One Best Christmas song of all time in various television, radio and magazine related polls in Ireland and the UK.

Recording and lyrics

The song was originally planned as a duet by Shane MacGowan and Pogues bassist Cait O'Riordan, but O'Riordan left the band in 1986, before the song was completed. The Pogues were at the time being produced by Kirsty MacColl's then husband Steve Lillywhite, who asked his wife to provide a guide vocal of the female part for a demo version of the song. The Pogues liked MacColl's contribution so much that they asked her to sing the part on the actual recording.

The song takes the form of a drunken Irish immigrant man's Christmas Eve reverie about holidays past while sleeping off a binge in a New York City drunk tank. After an inebriated old man also incarcerated in the jail cell sings a passage from the Irish drinking ballad "The Rare Old Mountain Dew", the drunken man (MacGowan) begins to dream about the song's female character. The remainder of the song (which may be an internal monologue) takes the form of a call and response between the couple, their youthful hopes crushed by alcoholism and drug addiction, reminiscing and bickering on Christmas Eve in New York City.

MacColl's melodious singing contrasts with the harshness of MacGowan's voice, and the lyrics are sometimes bittersweet—sometimes purely bitter: "Happy Christmas your arse / I pray God it's our last". The lyrics "Sinatra was swinging" and "cars as big as bars" seem to place the song in the 1950s. However, it is possible that the song is actually set in the early 1980s, when one of Sinatra's last chart hits, his 1980 recording of John Kander and Fred Ebb's theme from the movie New York, New York, was a fixture of New York City airwaves and a standard singalong record in the city's many neighborhood bars. The title, taken from author J. P. Donleavy's novel A Fairy Tale of New York, was chosen after the song had been written and recorded.

Twice MacGowan and MacColl sing, "The boys of the NYPD choir still singing "Galway Bay". The New York Police Department (NYPD) does not have a choir, but it does have a Pipes and Drums unit that is featured in the video for the song. The NYPD Pipes and Drums did not know "Galway Bay" and so played a different song for the music video, and the editor put it in slow motion to fit the beat.

The video featured Matt Dillon as the NYPD patrolman who arrests the intoxicated MacGowan.

Popularity

Releases and television performances

The song was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland in November 1987 and swiftly became a hit, reaching #1 in the Irish charts. On December 17, 1987, the Pogues and MacColl performed the song on the BBC's popular television show Top of the Pops, and it was propelled to #2 on the official UK Top 75. For the Top of the Pops appearance, the BBC insisted that MacColl's singing of "arse" be replaced with the less offensive "ass", although as she mimed the word MacColl slapped the relevant part of her body to make it clear what was meant.

Although the song finished 1987 as the 48th best seller of the year despite only a single month's sales, it was denied the Christmas #1 spot by the Pet Shop Boys' cover of "Always on My Mind". MacGowan commented on this in his typically forthright manner: "We were beaten by two queens and a drum machine". MacColl later said that she did not feel they were really in competition with the Pet Shop Boys as they were doing a completely different kind of music.

The song was re-released by The Pogues in the UK in 1991 (reaching #36), and again in the UK and Ireland for Christmas 2005, reaching #3 in the UK. All proceeds from the latter release were donated towards a mixture of homeless charities and "Justice for Kirsty", a campaign to find out the truth behind Kirsty MacColl's death in 2000. The song has re-entered the Top 40 every December since 2005. It has now made the Top 10 on four separate occasions, including three times in successive years, a feat no other single can match. Its nine visits to the chart now total 48 weeks on the official UK Top 75.

On December 22, 2005, The Pogues performed the song on a Jonathan Ross Christmas special on BBC One in the UK, with the female vocals taken by singer Katie Melua. This was The Pogues' first television performance of the song since 1988.

In November 2009, a Facebook group was set up with the express intention of getting the single to number one for Christmas. This was in response to a growing trend of X Factor finalists dominating the Christmas singles market. The song made it to # 12 in the UK and # 13 in Ireland. (A parallel campaign to get "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine succeeded in reaching #1, at least in the UK, the same year.)

The American movie production Basquiat released in 1996 recounting the life of famed New York City artist Jean-Michel Basquiat features the song in the beginning scene.

Chartings

Chart (1987)	Peak position
Irish Singles Chart	1
UK Singles Chart	2
Chart (1991)	Peak position
Irish Singles Chart	10
UK Singles Chart	36
Chart (2005)	Peak position
Irish Singles Chart	3
UK Singles Chart	3
Chart (2006)	Peak position
UK Singles Chart	6
Chart (2007)	Peak position
Irish Singles Chart	3
UK Singles Chart	4
Chart (2008)	Peak position
Irish Singles Chart	8
UK Singles Chart	12
Chart (2009)	Peak position
Irish Singles Chart	13
UK Singles Chart	12
Chart (2010)	Peak position
Irish Singles Chart	11
UK Singles Chart	17
Chart (2011)	Peak position
Irish Singles Chart	23
UK Singles Chart	23

End-of-year charts

Chart (2009)	Position
UK Singles Chart	191

Polls

The song has featured in many UK-based surveys and polls:-

• number 1 the VH1 greatest Christmas song chart three years running, 2004, 2005 and 2006
• number 11 in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Christmas Moments
• number 27 on VH1's Greatest Songs Never to Make Number One
• number 23 on VH1's greatest lyrics
• number 29 on 4Music's Noddy Holder's Big Christmas 50
• number 83 in Q Magazine's 100 Greatest Ever Songs*
• number 84 on BBC Radio 2's top 100 greatest songs of all time poll
• The Hits music channel rated "Fairytale of New York" number one in 'The Nation's Favourite Christmas Song' countdown
• In December 2008 The Music Factory UK did a poll which found that the song was the favourite Christmas song.
• number 1 song of the 80s by voters of The Radcliffe & Maconie show on BBC Radio 2 & BBC Four's Pop On Trial season in January 2008.

Censorship

On December 18, 2007, BBC Radio 1 put a ban on the words "faggot" and "slut" from "Fairytale of New York" to "avoid offence". The words, sung as Kirsty MacColl and MacGowan trade insults, were dubbed out. MacColl's mother, Jean, called the ban "too ridiculous", while the Pogues said they found it "amusing". The BBC said: "We are playing an edited version because some members of the audience might find it offensive". Later that evening Radio 1 backed down and said that after a day of criticism from listeners, the band, and MacColl's mother, they reversed the decision. The unedited version was then played later on that day. Other BBC radio stations, including the typically conservative Radio 2, had continued to play the original version throughout this period, the ban having applied to Radio 1 only. The MTV channels in the UK also subject the song to censorship by removing and scrambling the words "slut", "faggot" and "arse".

In his Christmas podcast, musical comedian Mitch Benn commented that "faggot" was Irish and Liverpudlian slang for a lazy person, and was unrelated to the derogatory term for homosexuals.

Cover versions

Since its original release, "Fairytale of New York" has been covered by numerous artists, including:

• Christy Moore on Smoke and Strong Whiskey and Live at the Point
• Sinéad O'Connor
• Damien Dempsey
• KT Tunstall and Ed Harcourt (on the Have Yourself a Very KT Christmas EP)
• Third Eye Blind
• Razorlight
• Dustin the Turkey with Dervla Kirwan
• The Irish Tenors (who leave out some of the racier verses)
• Karine Polwart
• Dropkick Murphys
• Sven Wollter and Lotta Engberg
• No Use For A Name
• Erik Petersen of Mischief Brew
• Jesse Malin
• Coldplay
• Stars
• Shane Ritchie with Jill Halfpenny for the EastEnders Christmas Special 2003.
• Dustin Kensrue, This version is sung solely from the perspective of McGowan's character, with the second verse altered and the third entirely rewritten
• Ronan Keating and Moya Brennan, the word "faggot" is written out of this version.
• Ronan Tynan
• Moya Brennan and Hughie McGarvey, where the word "faggot" remains.
• Amy MacDonald
• Florence Welch and Billy Bragg
• The City on Film
• Bob Schneider
• Forever the Sickest Kids featuring Sally Gunnell
• Pilot Speed featuring Lindi Ortega
• Angelo Branduardi covered in Italian with the title "Favola di natale a New York"
• Matthew and the Atlas
• Alexa Goddard & Brett Domino

In the fall of 2001, NRK broadcast a Norwegian version, performed by Adamseplene.

There is a German version featuring Wolfgang Niedecken from BAP and Nina Hagen. At the Kirsty MacColl tribute concert at the Royal Festival Hall in 2002, the song was performed by Mark E. Nevin and Mary Coughlan. It has been covered live by The Chavs (a supergroup including Carl Barât and Andy Burrows), Dirty Pretty Things (on The Russell Brand Show), Razorlight, Lisa Moorish and Coldplay.

Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, creators of the Adult Swim show The Venture Bros., recorded a version in character as The Monarch and Doctor Girlfriend for Quickstop Entertainment, as part of their 2007 "Holiday Havoc" series.

On 14 December 2009, Swedish actor Sven Wollter and singer Lotta Engberg performed the song at the Lisebergsscenen in Gothenburg in a live television show entitled "Lotta på Liseberg". Earlier, in November of that year, Engberg had released her record which included the duet with Sven Wollter.

There is also a live version by Swedish pop singer Håkan Hellström on his 2005 album Nåt gammalt, nåt nytt, nåt lånat, nåt blått from 2005, which is not a Christmas album. In 2001, Swedish quartet Ainbusk covered the song in Swedish as "En julsaga" ("A Christmas fairy tale"). There is a spoken version, adapted and performed by Gerry McArdle, with Colette Proctor and Aodán O'Dubhghaill, released by EMI, which reached no.7 in the Irish Top 10 Christmas 2000, and is requested every year on Irish radio.

On 10 December 2007, a Christmas Special of the Australian television show RocKwiz was broadcast featuring Tex Perkins and Clare Bowditch performed the song, accompanied by Joe Camilleri on clarinet.

New York's 101.9 WRXP features a yearly on-air duet of the song by Matt Pinfield and Heather Robb of the NYC based band, The Spring Standards.

In popular culture

The song featured in the 2007 film P.S. I Love You.

See also

• List of songs about New York City

External links

• "BBC article on Fairytale". BBC News. December 21, 2007.
• Fairytale of New York lyrics — The Pogues' discography
• "Sold on Song" article — BBC Radio 2