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"Fairytale of New York" is a song written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan and recorded by their London-based band the Pogues, featuring English singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl on vocals. The song is an Irish folk-style ballad and was written as a duet, with the Pogues' singer MacGowan taking the role of the male character and MacColl playing the female character. It was originally released as a single on 23 November 1987 and later featured on the Pogues' 1988 album If I Should Fall from Grace with God.
Originally begun in 1985, the song had a troubled two-year development history, undergoing rewrites and aborted attempts at recording, and losing its original female vocalist along the way, before finally being completed in August 1987. Although the single has never been the UK Christmas number one, being kept at number two on its original release in 1987 by the Pet Shop Boys' cover of "Always on My Mind", it has proved enduringly popular with both music critics and the public: to date, the song has reached the UK Top 20 on twenty separate occasions since its original release in 1987, including every year at Christmas since 2005. As of September 2017, it had sold 1.2 million copies in the UK, with an additional 249,626 streaming equivalent sales, for a total of 1.5 million combined sales. In December 2022, the song was certified quintuple platinum in the UK for 3 million combined sales.
In the UK, "Fairytale of New York" is the most-played Non-Carol Christmas song of the 21st century. It is frequently cited as the best Christmas song of all time in various television, radio, and magazine-related polls in the UK and Ireland, including the UK television special on ITV in December 2012 where it was voted The Nation's Favourite Christmas Song.
Background and song development
Although there is agreement among the band that "Fairytale of New York" was first written in 1985, the origins of the song are disputed. MacGowan insisted that it arose as a result of a wager made by the Pogues' producer at the time, Elvis Costello, that the band would not be able to write a Christmas hit single, while the Pogues' manager Frank Murray has stated that it was originally his idea that the band should try to write a Christmas song as he thought it would be "interesting". Banjo player Finer came up with the melody and the original concept for the song, which was set in County Clare on Ireland's west coast, involving a sailor in New York looking out over the ocean and reminiscing about being back home in Ireland. Finer's wife Marcia did not like the original seafaring story, and suggested new lyrics regarding a conversation between a couple at Christmas. Finer told NME, "I had written two songs complete with tunes, one had a good tune and crap lyrics, the other had the idea for 'Fairytale' but the tune was poxy, I gave them both to Shane and he gave it a Broadway melody, and there it was".
The song's title, the musical structure, and its lyrical theme of a conversation between a couple were in place by the end of 1985, and were described by MacGowan in an interview with Melody Maker in its 1985 Christmas issue:
"I sat down, opened the sherry, got the peanuts out and pretended it was Christmas. It's even called 'A Fairy Tale of New York', it's quite sloppy, more like 'A Pair of Brown Eyes' than 'Sally MacLennane', but there's also a céilidh bit in the middle which you can definitely dance to. Like a country and Irish ballad, but one you can do a brisk waltz to, especially when you've got about three of these inside you... But the song itself is quite depressing in the end, it's about these old Irish-American Broadway stars who are sitting round at Christmas talking about whether things are going okay."
MacGowan had decided to name the song after J. P. Donleavy's 1973 novel A Fairy Tale of New York, which Finer was reading at the time and had left lying around the recording studio. In the same Melody Maker interview, MacGowan expressed regret that the song had not been completed in time to be released for Christmas that year and hinted that the track would appear on an EP that the Pogues were due to record shortly. In January 1986, the group recorded the song during the sessions with Costello that would produce the Poguetry in Motion EP, with bass player Cait O'Riordan singing the female part. Costello suggested naming the song "Christmas Eve in the Drunk Tank", after the song's opening lines, but the band were scornful of Costello's suggestion, with MacGowan pointing out to Costello that a song with such a title was unlikely to be favourably received and played by radio stations. The majority of the lyrics had been written while MacGowan was recovering in a bed in Malmö after being struck down with double pneumonia during a Pogues tour of Scandinavia in late 1985 – he later said, "you get a lot of delirium and stuff, so I got quite a few good images out of that". However, despite several attempts at recording it, the group were unhappy with the results and the song was temporarily put aside, to be returned to at a later date. Guitarist Philip Chevron later said, "It was not quite there. It needed to have a full-on, confident performance from the band, which it lacked." The producer of the final version, Steve Lillywhite, diplomatically described the version recorded with O'Riordan's vocals as not "fully realised". Extracts from these earlier versions of the song are included on the 2008 box set Just Look Them Straight in the Eye and Say... POGUEMAHONE!!.
In March 1986, the Pogues toured the US for the first time. The opening date of the tour was in New York City, a place which had long fascinated MacGowan and which inspired him to write new lyrics for the song. Among the members of the city's Irish-American community who saw the show and visited the band backstage after the concert were film-maker Peter Dougherty and actor Matt Dillon: both later became friends with the Pogues and played important roles in the video for "Fairytale of New York". Another inspiration was Sergio Leone's film Once Upon a Time in America, which MacGowan and whistle player Spider Stacy watched over and over again in the tour bus. Apart from shaping the ideas for the lyrics, MacGowan wrote a slow, piano-based introduction to "Fairytale of New York" influenced by the film's score by Ennio Morricone; the intro was later edited together with the more upbeat original melody to create the final song.
As 1986 went on, the Pogues encountered various problems that brought a halt to their recording activity. Their record label Stiff ran into financial difficulties and went into administration, although as the label still owned the rights to the Pogues' recordings this meant that a distribution deal had to be negotiated with a new label to release any new Pogues material. The group's deteriorating relationship with Costello saw them part ways with their producer, and, after increasingly erratic behaviour, Cait O'Riordan, who had become romantically involved with Costello, left the band in October 1986. The departure of O'Riordan meant the song had now lost its intended female singer.
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"Fairytale of New York" is a song written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan and recorded by their London-based band the Pogues, featuring English singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl on vocals. The song is an Irish folk-style ballad and was written as a duet, with the Pogues' singer MacGowan taking the role of the male character and MacColl playing the female character. It was originally released as a single on 23 November 1987 and later featured on the Pogues' 1988 album If I Should Fall from Grace with God.
Originally begun in 1985, the song had a troubled two-year development history, undergoing rewrites and aborted attempts at recording, and losing its original female vocalist along the way, before finally being completed in August 1987. Although the single has never been the UK Christmas number one, being kept at number two on its original release in 1987 by the Pet Shop Boys' cover of "Always on My Mind", it has proved enduringly popular with both music critics and the public: to date, the song has reached the UK Top 20 on twenty separate occasions since its original release in 1987, including every year at Christmas since 2005. As of September 2017, it had sold 1.2 million copies in the UK, with an additional 249,626 streaming equivalent sales, for a total of 1.5 million combined sales. In December 2022, the song was certified quintuple platinum in the UK for 3 million combined sales.
In the UK, "Fairytale of New York" is the most-played Non-Carol Christmas song of the 21st century. It is frequently cited as the best Christmas song of all time in various television, radio, and magazine-related polls in the UK and Ireland, including the UK television special on ITV in December 2012 where it was voted The Nation's Favourite Christmas Song.
Background and song development
Although there is agreement among the band that "Fairytale of New York" was first written in 1985, the origins of the song are disputed. MacGowan insisted that it arose as a result of a wager made by the Pogues' producer at the time, Elvis Costello, that the band would not be able to write a Christmas hit single, while the Pogues' manager Frank Murray has stated that it was originally his idea that the band should try to write a Christmas song as he thought it would be "interesting". Banjo player Finer came up with the melody and the original concept for the song, which was set in County Clare on Ireland's west coast, involving a sailor in New York looking out over the ocean and reminiscing about being back home in Ireland. Finer's wife Marcia did not like the original seafaring story, and suggested new lyrics regarding a conversation between a couple at Christmas. Finer told NME, "I had written two songs complete with tunes, one had a good tune and crap lyrics, the other had the idea for 'Fairytale' but the tune was poxy, I gave them both to Shane and he gave it a Broadway melody, and there it was".
The song's title, the musical structure, and its lyrical theme of a conversation between a couple were in place by the end of 1985, and were described by MacGowan in an interview with Melody Maker in its 1985 Christmas issue:
"I sat down, opened the sherry, got the peanuts out and pretended it was Christmas. It's even called 'A Fairy Tale of New York', it's quite sloppy, more like 'A Pair of Brown Eyes' than 'Sally MacLennane', but there's also a céilidh bit in the middle which you can definitely dance to. Like a country and Irish ballad, but one you can do a brisk waltz to, especially when you've got about three of these inside you... But the song itself is quite depressing in the end, it's about these old Irish-American Broadway stars who are sitting round at Christmas talking about whether things are going okay."
MacGowan had decided to name the song after J. P. Donleavy's 1973 novel A Fairy Tale of New York, which Finer was reading at the time and had left lying around the recording studio. In the same Melody Maker interview, MacGowan expressed regret that the song had not been completed in time to be released for Christmas that year and hinted that the track would appear on an EP that the Pogues were due to record shortly. In January 1986, the group recorded the song during the sessions with Costello that would produce the Poguetry in Motion EP, with bass player Cait O'Riordan singing the female part. Costello suggested naming the song "Christmas Eve in the Drunk Tank", after the song's opening lines, but the band were scornful of Costello's suggestion, with MacGowan pointing out to Costello that a song with such a title was unlikely to be favourably received and played by radio stations. The majority of the lyrics had been written while MacGowan was recovering in a bed in Malmö after being struck down with double pneumonia during a Pogues tour of Scandinavia in late 1985 – he later said, "you get a lot of delirium and stuff, so I got quite a few good images out of that". However, despite several attempts at recording it, the group were unhappy with the results and the song was temporarily put aside, to be returned to at a later date. Guitarist Philip Chevron later said, "It was not quite there. It needed to have a full-on, confident performance from the band, which it lacked." The producer of the final version, Steve Lillywhite, diplomatically described the version recorded with O'Riordan's vocals as not "fully realised". Extracts from these earlier versions of the song are included on the 2008 box set Just Look Them Straight in the Eye and Say... POGUEMAHONE!!.
In March 1986, the Pogues toured the US for the first time. The opening date of the tour was in New York City, a place which had long fascinated MacGowan and which inspired him to write new lyrics for the song. Among the members of the city's Irish-American community who saw the show and visited the band backstage after the concert were film-maker Peter Dougherty and actor Matt Dillon: both later became friends with the Pogues and played important roles in the video for "Fairytale of New York". Another inspiration was Sergio Leone's film Once Upon a Time in America, which MacGowan and whistle player Spider Stacy watched over and over again in the tour bus. Apart from shaping the ideas for the lyrics, MacGowan wrote a slow, piano-based introduction to "Fairytale of New York" influenced by the film's score by Ennio Morricone; the intro was later edited together with the more upbeat original melody to create the final song.
As 1986 went on, the Pogues encountered various problems that brought a halt to their recording activity. Their record label Stiff ran into financial difficulties and went into administration, although as the label still owned the rights to the Pogues' recordings this meant that a distribution deal had to be negotiated with a new label to release any new Pogues material. The group's deteriorating relationship with Costello saw them part ways with their producer, and, after increasingly erratic behaviour, Cait O'Riordan, who had become romantically involved with Costello, left the band in October 1986. The departure of O'Riordan meant the song had now lost its intended female singer.
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