Fairy tale of New York AIBU

[crashdoll]

I was convinced one of lines went as follows;
"Happy Christmas you old fucking cunt of a man"
Now, I find out I was wrong and I'm devastated. This has ruined my Christmas!

AIBU to feel that my version was much better?

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

I do love FTONY, I think it's overplayed though, but what Xmas song isn't?

[AlienRefucksLooksLikeSnow]

I went there busty to try and get pissed hang out with him, he wasn't there!

[BustyDeLaGhetto]

I have met Shane McGowan loads. He used to own a pub called Filthy McNastys in Islington which was my local for years and he was always there cadging cigarettes. He was thoroughly bad news and lots of fun.

[weblette]

Hello to the other Strange Communion fans. St Stephen St Murders is an ace song. Sol Invictus is also a fave. May have to buy the Tracey Thorn too...

[proofreader]

She was certainly well-connected -
but lovely anyway....
and not to hijack they are in FTONY
Happy Christmas!

[MoominmammasHandbag]

Love the Pogues, love Fairytale of New York, but the Kirsty MacColl bit, well I think many singers could have done an equally good job.
Kirsty MacColl always came across as lovely in interviews and her death was tragic but I do think she was quite overrated. All her best releases were covers. I think she got a very big leg up in the business from her father and her husband's reputations.

[WelshMaenad]

I love FTONY with a passion. So many fab memories. My favourite, I think, Christmas 2001, I was young, single, solvent and thinner. I was getting drunk in an Irish bar in Cardiff with my lovely friend Andrew. FTONY came on and he pulled me up to dance and we just twirled like the giggling, drunken buffoons we were, him spinning me round until I couldn't breathe for laughing, whilst he did a credible Shane McGowan impression. We've lost touch, I'm really sad and I miss him but every time I hear that song it makes me grin.

[boschy]

Omifuckinggod, I have just heard it MURDERED on our local news. A band in Tunbridge Wells have issued a 'swing' version. Kneecapping too good IMHO.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheMistletoes]

It seems like a real Marmite song, love it or hate it. It's weird that I should hate it really as a lot of my favourite recordings a duets and I love harmonies. I like the Pogues (or did, haven't listened to them for years), Kirsty has a lovely voice and yet there's something about this song that really sets my teeth on edge, it's very twee and doesn't come over as being the least bit authentic to me at all, just staged and insincere.

[laptopdancer]

Ah, thanks for the reply :)
I think thats why I dislike it...the tune grates on me and I hate the irish folky thing and her voice (sorry, sad to say when she has passed away but its not for me). I find the words to gritty and not like any thing Id relate to.

[ArielTheBahHumbugMermaid]

Sixthly the harmonies. There's something inherently catchy and sinaglongable about harmonies in thirds. Almost anyone can do them.

[goralka]

I love it - best Christmas song ever and a memorial to the lovely Kirsty..
also to add to what Ariel said, it's the duet thing and the reality of a relationship gone bad.

[JenaiMathis]

Yup, what Ariel said.

It's two imperfect people who have been together for a very long time in an imperfect relationship. Not dysfuntional, just not all sunshine and roses. It's beautiful.

[PeppermintLatte]

Everything Ariel said. It's just a masterpiece IMO.

[ArielTheBahHumbugMermaid]

Firstly the tune. Secondly the instrumentation. Thirdly the aching sadness of the lyrics. Fourthly the love expressed in it. Fifthly Irish inspired music is generally quite jolly and catchy.

[laptopdancer]

Can I just ask why people like it so much?

[boschy]

It is THE BEST CHRISTMAS SONG EVER. so there. And I met some "boys from the NYPD" (not necessarily in the choir though, in fact most unlikely) and they were ace too.

[Bogeyface]

I thought it was "a dripping wet bed" :o

Still hate the song though!

[parachutesarefab]

I thought the NYPD choir were singing "all in vain" - some sort of contrast between the happy Christmas songs and a stark reality?

And Couthy - definitely "old sloven drunk"

Mystified to what I thought "Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed" was - don't recognise it AT ALL, but no idea what I sing instead.

(Retreats into happy memories of getting last two tickets to a Kirsty MacColl concert where I was clearly listening to different versions of the songs to everyone else and how she seemed such a genuinely nice person.)

[WhoKnowsWhereTheMistletoes]

I'll concede that her version of Days is lovely, but FONY is (to me) absolutely toe curlingly awful.

[JenaiMathis]

Lockedout Lovely article. Made me all goosebumpy

[IceNoSlice]

I think 'There's a guy works down the chip shop' is funny!! But I didn't Ever know her songs when they were in the charts, only later, so I never heard them on the radio. I think that makes a difference

[JenaiMathis]

Oh I like her version of New England. And Days.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheMistletoes]

I've never forgiven her for massacring A New England. She had a lovely voice but made some terrible recordings. There's A Guy Worked Down the Chip Shop is one of the worst pop records ever IMO.