To ask if Fairytale of New York is your favourite Christmas song?

[harmoneygarxe]

Just that really.

Is it a love it or hate it song?

Definitely in my top 3. I think the musical arrangement is absolutely stunning and it's full of pathos. I actually saw the Pogues perform this live at Brixton Academy the year after Kirsty McColl died. They got a guest singer and performed it as a tribute to Kirsty. It was so beautiful and so terribly terribly sad at the same time. Lot of people in the audience welling up....

The original is my favourite.

I don't like the new lyrics because they're shite and ruin it.

I also love Baby, It's Cold Outside.

I like Fairytale but they have to play the right version. Not the sanitised made for 5 year olds one that ends up on the radio.

For a "on the radio" one I'd maybe go for Driving home for Christmas.

But I do know that Christmas doesn't start until someone puts Bach's Christmas Oratorio on at volume. The opening is a killer.

I voted UABU because i can't understand why anything has to be full-on love OR hate.

Some things in in life I love. Some things I hate. Most things are on a spectrum in between, including Marmite, which I have never, ever loved or hated.

FYI, Fairytale of New York is a song I like a lot. But I could still die happy even if I never heard it again.

Absolutely hate it

I love it. It's my favourite.

The wretched dirge has just come on the Absolute 80s chart show 😂

The video

It’s pretty much the only Christmas song I don’t hate!

It was No 1 in December 1984 (knocked off by "Do They Know It's Christmas" for BandAid)

Also the video is kind of... rather...Christmas focused

Anyway, Die Hard is hardly obviously festive but accepted as a Christmas film, isn't it?

Nope. It became a song that was on a Christmas advert.

Love it, I adore the music and the, chavvy apparently 🤣, lyrics. It’s my no 1.
no2 - Stop the Cavalry
no3 - Mary’s Boy Child
no4 - Slade
no5- Shaky
Hate Greg Lake.

No, the waitresses Christmas Wrapping is mine! Also Stop The cavalry. Least favourite Mariah Carey (used to be my favourite!)

Same

I do enjoy the song, but my fave is shaky. It makes me feel so happy and festive 😀

Yeah, it was a hit at Christmas. The video is Christmas-themed. The song, however, is not a Christmas song.

(And "is Die Hard a Xmas film?" is one of the most clichéd and tedious discussions of all time. Die Hard is set on Christmas Eve. It has much more to do with Christmas (i.e. something) than Power of Love does (i.e. nothing).

I prefer O Holy Night.

OK, not overtly, but as I say, I give you Die Hard. POL certainly entered the zeitgeist as a Christmas song.

This article talks about it came to be associated with Christmas. Which makes it a Christmas song today.

‘They made an extended version by including a recorded Christmas message called Holier Than Thou in which five drunken Frankies chant a festive rhyme: “Christmas is here once again / So let’s all have some fun / Don’t forget 10 pints tonight / And don’t forget to come – to the lads’ party of course!”’

…

“We were told by Trevor and Paul that it could be Christmas No 1,” he says. “We thought, what’s an obvious thing to be watching while people were having their Christmas lunch? The nativity! We hadn’t actually heard the song. It was a nice change from the mad fantasy shit we’d been doing before. We thought, why don’t we try to be Zeffirelli?”

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/2022/12/19/the-power-of-love-was-never-meant-as-a-christmas-song-so-how-did-it-end-up-a-festive-hit/

It's in my top 20 but far from the best. Don't think many of you will agree with my top 5 choices though!

Wombling Merry Christmas
When a child is born
I wish it could be Christmas every day
Mary's boy child
Mistletoe and wine

I swing between FTONY and Driving home for Christmas as my favourite. I give them alternate years 😂

I love it.

A very long time ago, in 1989, when FONY was only 2 years old, I was home for Christmas after my first term at university, and was madly in love with my first boyfriend, who was home for Christmas in a completely different part of the country. Every day throughout that vacation we would post eavh other a line of lyrics. It was pathetically sweet for geeky 18 year olds in a tome before mobile phones and home internet, but FONY holds happy memories for me for that reason.

Can't stand it or most other Christmas songs.

The Wombles and Mary's Boy Child (Boney M version) are definitely in my top 5 - great memories of Christmas in the 70s!

Transiberian Orchestra also brilliant with their Christmas selection.