FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK – The Best Christmas Song Ever?

FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK

It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

They've got cars big as bars
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand
On a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me
Broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging,
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on a corner
Then danced through the night

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing "Galway Bay"
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
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

• "Fairytale of New York" was first released in 1987. It shot to No.1 in the Irish charts and reached No.2 in the British charts, over the peak sales of the Christmas period.


• Over the years Fairytale Of New York has become a festive classic in the UK and Ireland, and for three successive years (2004, 2005 and 2006) it was voted the best Christmas song of all time in polls by run by the music channel VH1 UK, even though it didn't achieve the Christmas Number One when it was released. In another VH1 poll Fairytale Of New York was also voted as the 27th greatest song never to reach No.1 in the UK, it was also voted as the 84th greatest song of all time by listeners of BBC Radio 2 in their "Sold on Song" top 100 poll.


• The song was re-released by The Pogues in the UK in 1991 (reaching No.36), and again in the UK and Ireland for Christmas 2005, reaching No.3 in the UK. All proceeds from the 2005 release were donated to a number of homeless charities and "Justice for Kirsty", a campaign to find out the truth behind Kirsty MacColl's death in 2000.


• In December 2006 Fairytale Of New York entered the UK Top 10 for the third time, when it reached No.6, and it returned in December 2007, and reached No.4.


• Fairytale Of New York has reached the Top 10 on four separate occasions including three times in successive years, a feat which I believe no other song has matched.