It was a year ago today — Friday, Dec. 8, 2023 — that Irish singer-songwriters Glen Hansard and Lisa O’Neill joined the Pogues to perform “Fairytale of New York” at the funeral Mass for Pogues leader Shane MacGowan at an Irish church.
A ballad in the Irish folk style, “Fairytale of New York” was co-written by MacGowan and Pogues bandmate Jem Finer and released in 1987.
It’s long been a popular Christmas song in the UK, where it’s the most-played Christmas song of the 21st century. Thus its lively performance at MacGowan’s funeral. That’s his coffin with roses on top at lower right in the video screen grab.
“Fairytale of New York” is set at Christmas, a duet between an Irish guy in a drunk tank and his druggie ex-girlfriend in a New York City of vaguely defined vintage. They trade memories, profane insults, and hopes. MacGowan sang the man’s part and the late Kirsty MacColl sang the woman’s part on the 1987 original. (The video below is from 1988.)
Writing in The Guardian in 2012, author and journalist Dorian Linskey explained the song and its appeal this way:
“Once upon a time a band set out to make a Christmas song. Not about snow or sleigh rides or mistletoe or miracles, but lost youth and ruined dreams. A song in which Christmas is as much the problem as it is the solution. A kind of anti-Christmas song that ended up being, for a generation, the Christmas song. …
“(It) shows no sign of losing its appeal. It is loved because it feels more emotionally ‘real’ than the homesick sentimentality of White Christmas or the bullish bonhomie of Merry Xmas Everybody, but it contains elements of both and the story it tells is an unreal fantasy of 1940s New York dreamed up in 1980s London.”
I’d never understood the appeal of “Fairytale of New York” — it’s not as well-known or as beloved here in the States — until I saw and heard it performed at MacGowan’s funeral a year ago. Fierce Irish pride expressed in the joy of the moment. Dancing in church! MacGowan’s widow Victoria and his sister Siobhan among the dancers!
Objection!
An Irish parish priest, one Father Paddy McCafferty, was appalled by what went down a year ago today at St. Mary of the Rosary Church in Nenagh, County Tipperary.
“There needs to be something done about these so-called celebrity funerals in a Catholic church,” he told the Catholic News Agency.
“It’s not a bad song. But it’s not a song to be sung after Holy Communion during the Mass,” he harrumphed. “It’s a mockery. I don’t think everyone present meant to be mocking. But that’s how it came across. And it needs to stop.”
Objection overruled!
To which pretty much everyone who had seen the performance from the funeral, knew of the song, knew of MacGowan and MacColl, knew of the Pogues, or had enjoyed it at Christmas over the years, likely thought the good father ought to take a flying leap into Lough Dipshit.
“It’s so refreshing hearing those honest lyrics inside a church,” a YouTube commenter wrote. “Mighty send-off by everyone. Shane would be raising a glass to this tribute.”
“Fairytale of New York” was released as a single or an EP in the UK and/or Europe in 1987, 1988, 1991, 2oo5, 2012 and 2023. Its only American release was in 2005.
BTW, here are the lyrics to “Fairytale of New York” for those who occasionally struggle to understand thick Irish accents, as I do.