‘You’re a bum, you’re a punk’

We need to talk about the ‘controversy’ surrounding Fairytale of New York Michael Higgins

‘Humanity cannot bear very much reality,” said T.S. Eliot. Especially, he might have added, when it comes to a particular Christmas song.

Once again the much loved — and unloved by some — Fairytale of New York by The Pogues is coming under fire for its “offensive” lyrics. Yes, some of the lyrics are offensive, but then The Pogues name is offensive being a contracted form of the Gaelic words meaning kiss my derriere.

Most of the criticism seems to be dismissive of the song’s artistry. Lead singer Shane Macgowan spent two years crafting the song, so we should probably consider it more than just an “offensive pile of downmarket chav bilge,” a description by Alex Dyke, a BBC radio presenter who called for it to be banned. (Merriam-webster defines chav as: a young person in Britain of a type stereotypically known for engaging in aggressively loutish behaviour especially when in groups and for wearing flashy jewelry and athletic casual clothing — such as tracksuits and baseball caps.)

Dyke goes on, “’You’re a slut on junk, you scumbag, cheap lousy f----t’ — is this what we want our kids singing in the back of the car?”

Personally, I don’t want kids singing in the back of my car at all. But captured between those lyrics is a story of starry eyed lovers, big city dreams, hopes shattered, illusions spoiled, Christmases, both idyllic and nightmarish, and finally — finally — redemption.

The duet between Macgowan and the very talented — and too soon deceased — Kirsty Maccoll regularly features in Britain as one of the all time great Christmas songs (last week a survey voted it the most popular Christmas song in the U.K.). The continued success of Fairytale of New York lies, not only in the music, the mixture of joyful and sad, but in its authenticity, its ability to tell a story, the power of its images and words.

Written by Macgowan, a drunk, a heroin addict and a man of few teeth, it always promised to be a different Christmas song, and from the very opening we know it.

“It was Christmas Eve babe In the drunk tank An old man said to me, Won’t see another one.”

On the eve of Christ’s birth, we are confronted starkly with the seedy side of life, a reminder not all is hope and joy, that there are drunks, homeless, addicts, the destitute, the poor, and all sorts of people who won’t be having a Merry Christmas.

There is also the forthcoming death of an old man that serves as a counterpoint to the birth of Christ. T.S. Eliot’s The Journey of the Magi echoes the same theme: “Were we led all that way for Birth or Death?” asks the Magus. “I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different.” In other words, change is coming. The scene is almost certainly autobiographical, as is a later detail in the song where Macgowan describes his former love as, “Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed.”

As Macgowan told the Guardian in 2012, “I have been in hospitals on morphine drips and I have been in drunk tanks on Christmas Eve.”

What follows is a classic love story.

“So happy Christmas I love you baby I can see a better time When all our dreams come true.”

And the dreams do come true. For our lovers, they come true in New York some time in the 1940s when the cars are as big as bars, when Sinatra was swinging and when the NYPD choir was singing “Galway Bay,” a mega hit for Bing Crosby after recording it in 1947. And there is success in their lives. She becomes the Queen of New York City, the crowds howl out for more — what could go wrong?

But it does, because life does.

And it comes crashing down. Startlingly, violently, in a blaze of recriminations, hatred and insults.

(Maccoll singing)

“You’re a bum, you’re a punk”

(Macgowan)

“You’re an old slut on junk Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed”

(Maccoll)

“You scumbag, you maggot You cheap lousy f----t, Happy Christmas, your arse I pray God it’s our last.”

The beautiful dreams, the fanciful hopes, the aching desires, all come down to an offensive, angry, insultladen tirade.

Since the song was first performed in 1987, those shocking lyrics have caused controversy. At one stage the song was banned by the BBC — only to be reinstated.

Last year, Macgowan issued a statement addressing the use of the slur in his lyrics: “The word was used by the character because it fitted with the way she would speak and with her character,” Macgowan wrote. “She is not supposed to be a nice person, or even a wholesome person. She is a woman of a certain generation at a certain time in history and she is down on her luck and desperate. Her dialogue is as accurate as I could make it but she is not intended to offend! She is just supposed to be an authentic character and not all characters in songs and stories are angels or even decent and respectable, sometimes characters in songs and stories have to be evil or nasty in order to tell the story effectively.”

If the song ended with those lyrics, the song is one of bleakness, despair and sadness — themes also in an 8th century Irish poem called Donal Og. Macgowan, a lover of Irish poetry and history, was almost certainly acquainted with the poem which speaks of a woman promised everything by her lover only to be spurned, leaving a sense of overwhelming wretchedness. The poem’s last stanza is:

“You have taken the east from me, you have taken the west from me; you have taken what is before me and what is behind me; you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me; and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!”

Macgowan picks up that theme in his last verse when Maccoll sings,

“You took my dreams from me.”

But then he replies:

“I kept them with me babe I put them with my own Can’t make it all alone I’ve built my dreams around you.”

In contrast to Donal Og, the song ends with a hint of hopefulness. While this final redemption may not be grounded in reality, Macgowan seems to understand better than anyone outside of T.S. Eliot that humans cannot bear much of that stuff — especially at Christmastime. That’s what makes “Fairytale of New York” such a complicated, challenging and beautiful song.