To hate Fairytale of New York?

[discobeaver]

Hate it. hate the drunken late night in a pub singalong, hate the way everyone bloody has it on their Christmas top ten songs or whatever. Hate the lachyrymosity (sp?) of it. And that singer's teeth, always see them as soon as the song starts.

Also feel that the whole 'you're an old slut on junk' bit is written for shock value.

I just cannot stand it. I'd rather poke spoons in my ears than hear this bloody dirge any more.

I quite like it. And Stop The Cavalry, which may just be my fave. Am not 40 something and do not have a penis.

Also like Ella Fitzgerald's Let it Snow.

11month old DD seems to like Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time. She bops like crazy to it. I hope there is still time to influence her musical tastes.

YABVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVU

Its the only folk song english people know!

i shudder to think of christmas without it tbh

That is so spooky, I was driving this morning and thinking of starting the exact same post!
I loved this song, when I was a kid my Dad let me sing all the 'bad' words, it was my favorite Christmas song. But this year it is bloody everywhere 'tis doing my head in now.
And I am the worlds biggest George Michael fan, and love WHAM! to bits, but my god if I hear 'last Christmas' once more today the radio is going out the window.
Wow, I'm a right Christmas grump today, I think it because my DH has 'lost' my 101 Christmas Hits CD that I insist on playing from 1st December...

ybavu
tis the best christmas song ever

What? Shane has new teeth? What is the world coming to? Always beats me how the guy is still alive at all given his lifestyle/whisky diet etc.

But YABVU, OP.
As for the "old slut on junk" line, stroke of genius IMVHO - superb contextualisation of the universal stress-induced Christmas rows. "You've burnt the gravy and you know I despise sprouts" just wouldn't cut the mustard with his voice and those teeth. On the other hand, now he's had them done maybe he should update his lyrics.

by Eartha Kitt - that's the best Christmas song ever. Closely followed by Frank singing Let It Snow - I had that on my iPod as I was walking to school once and it started snowing. I beamed at people for ages.

And I love Fairytale - more for the memories than the song.

Love it to Eartha Kitt's 'Santa Baby'. Love it to Fairytale.

The one that makes my teeth itch and actually raises my blood pressure with hatred is fecking "Feed the world". The memories of 80's hair swaying and holding earphones to one ear sends shivers down my spine and the lyrics are truly, truly REPULSIVE.

Quite agree Rosebud, re Feed the World, though didn't really think of it being a pop star's attempt to cash in on Christmas like the majority of other trash that gets played only at this time of year...

"Frank singing Let It Snow - I had that on my iPod as I was walking to school once"

Oh boy, not sure how long iPod has been around but that just reminds me how old I am. When I walked to the Grammar School in the early 70s I used to nearly cause accidents as few had seen anyone listening to a transistor radio on full size headphones back then.

Cord was strong enough to support the radio if it fell from my pocket. I listened to Noel's breakfast show, which replaced listening to corny jokes and (but doubt many of you were alive then!!)

NetworkGuy - I am ancient :o. I was walking to pick the DCs up, not to attend myself. In my day the cool kids had sony walkmans.

Agree re Feed The World - it was terrible then, and it's still terrible now.

Did you see that the sainted Sir Bob has recently admitted what we knew all along - Feed the World is a rubbish song.

Just googled for a link but can't find one, sure I haven't made it up though. Did anyone else hear that.

networkguy - ipod first sold in 2001, bet that makes you feel even older. Did you all crowd round a tiny radio on Tuesday lunchtime to hear the new chart ?

I LOVE "Feed the World!" It reminds me of clearing out my toy box to have a jumble sale on the side of the road (net takings: £7).

They played "Last Christmas" as I was being prepped for a trial of forceps after a long labour. That's my least favourite Christmas song now..

What I like about "Fairytale of New York" is that it represents the drunken sentimentality many people not just us Paddies tend to indulge in over the Christmas season. Beginning of night = I'm happy, I love you. End of night = this is crap, I hate you etc. The ridiculous expectations and subsequent disappointment of the holiday season. Ner indeed.

The greatest Irish lyricist of his generation didn't write lyrics only for shock value.

That sounds good at face value, but it's really a fairly narrow pool isn't it? I don't know how many Irish lyricists of his generation there were, but maybe not that many.

The greatest according to whom? I don't think he was, so he isn't the greatest to me. It's all subjective.

YABVU

LOL Hassledge - my mistake in wrong assumption! Walkmans - spawn of the devil (in being able to chew up the mass produced [ie to lowest cost] pre-recorded tapes). Hope you made your own music tapes on TDK C60s. I only used a walkman-style tape player (with a speed control) for loading games into my (fussy) Spectrum 48K (with the dead-flesh feel keyboard).

No, scarletbegonia, there was a "Music Lab" (portacabin, until it was sucked away in a tornado) where we went on Tuesdays as the music teacher was happy to put the radio on through some big speakers for us to listen, as he accepted pop music was bound to be of interest, even if most of what we were taught was a bit more sedate.

A few of my friends were a bit sad though, writing down the sequence of records week after week, as if knowing Bowie was top of the pop charts for X weeks in 197x was going to be important (apart from in a Pub Quiz, of course). It was around the time of Aladdin Sane to Young Americans when I was at school, Ziggy had been massive, and we were following all the bands of the 70s as they released new material... Must admit I didn't get into Bowie like a couple of close friends, who even got make up for the Aladdin Sane look !!

I love it

"you scum bag you maggot you cheap lousey faggot, merry christmas my arse" - brilliant antidote to the schmultz, touch of family hell, but done in a way we can all singalong too.

Shane may have the worlds worst teeth, but Kirsty MacColl is sweet compensation.

If you're already ancient Hassledge, what does that make me, almost 10 years older! When I was away at college doing tape to tape cassette copying (!) you were just on your way to being a teenager...

i love it

networkguy - my school was very prim and proper, no radios allowed so one girl used to smuggle one in which we listened to with a guard at the door for passing teachers and, yes, she did write down the top 5 on a piece of paper with the numbers already written on.

No idea what happened to the pieces of paper, maybe she has a huge box at home marked "Top 5s 1972 - 1980""

If you can imagine someone wearing "cans", scarletbegonia, a bit like a cyberman but not metallic, then it makes me wonder how I took them into school, unless it was that I put them away in my sports bag and was careful about not being tempted to try to listen once there.

However, have always been a bit of a rebel (out of bounds and accused of starting a fire when I was at boarding school, but that's for some other thread) and my Mum perhaps encouraged this - she once got me a Russian radio which had a single earpiece...

the radio itself was small enough to fit in a (small) matchbox and used a hearing aid (flat) battery, which went under the volume control (vol control was plastic cover with a bar across for volume adjustment, 'cover' method was used to hold battery in the radio, and use least space as the electronics must have been crammed into the rest of the remaining space).

I like fairytale, but can understand those who dislike it. Because I am that kind of guy. (I am not a Blair clone)

Love it. Love The Pogues. Loved Kirsty MacColl

Have just googled 'Shane MacGowan's new teeth'. Blimey!

Saw them a few years back the day before christmas eve in the MEN arena and they were supported by The Dropkick Murphys (My FAVOURITE irish american punk band)

Twas the best experience of my life bar none, hearing ALL my favourite songs and then ending on that!

EVERYONE in the place put their arms around one another and sang it!! Even got lucky with a gorgeous irish girl!

So it brings back awesome memories for me!

The bit I like best is: "The boys of the NYPD choir still singing Galway Bay - and the bells are ringing out for Christmas Day." you got to have a heart of stone not to get tears in your eyes at that IMHO. A lot of it makes me sad, tis a very moving song.

YABU btw.

DP likes The Pogues but they don't do it for me.
Last Christmas when we had all the family round at ours DS was finding everyone's favourite Christmas song on youtube (mine's Darlene Love and the E Street Band's Alone on Christmas by the way). MIL asked for Away in a Manger.

'I wish it could be Christmas every day'
Well it can't

'Happy Christmas (War is Over)'
Isn't

'Santa Claus is coming to Town'
Father Christmas in this house

'Stop the Cavalry'
Caltrops

'Driving home for Christmas'
Have you seen the M1 on the 24th