3-7-08 The Pogues – Fairytale of New York
Posted by gavortnik on March 7, 2008
Well, maybe I should have saved this one for St. Patrick’s Day cuz, you know, we Irish are just a bunch of lushes… or maybe for Christmas, when my seasonal affective disorder kicks in and as a needed antidote against the toxic levels of sappiness around that time of year (and which seem to get treaclier and treaclier the deeper we get into the War on Terror) but…
Nah.
This is the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York (lyrics on the Pogues’ site here) - sung with Kirsty MacColl and off their album If I Fall from Grace with God - and if it isn’t a bar song and the Pogues’ signature, then it should be. I got to thinking about them while listening to NPR today. They’re of course in violent mourning over the end of The Wire (which I have never seen) and they mentioned an “iconic scene” – which I’ve never heard of – about some Baltimore cops singing a Pogues song during a fellow cop’s wake.
This is how my mind works.
Fairytale of New York is very special to me. It was one of my friend Marie’s favorite songs, and she often sung it to me before she left for Portland. (It was also the inspiration for A Fairy Tale of New York, set in my Witchgun universe and which I still consider one of my best stories)
And it’s only gotten more dear to me as the years go on. Things like that – old men and women surveying the wreckage of their lives – tend to as I look out at the wreckage of my life, or at least the unfulfilled promises, the betrayed great expectations, the cowardice and everything wonderful that shriveled and died, screaming, on the vine.
This is a damn good song.
By the way, if you want to know how you should celebrate Christmas – or at least what should be playing on the stereo – here’s Corvus Corax with their appropriately named Bacchus (MP3).
