Fairytale of New York — The Pogues
#365Songs: December 25th
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
“It’s not that often that I hear a Christmas song that doesn’t make me want to quit music.” — Phoebe Bridgers
Preach, Phoebe. In her defense, there are so many bad, or overplayed, Christmas songs — so cliche, so damn cheerful. As a lover of sad songs and unhinged narratives, I prefer my holiday soundtrack to be tinged with some real world shit.
John Prine loved Christmas so much he kept a tree lit in his living room all year. No thanks, but good on him. Glad he owned it. And yet, when you listen to Christmas in Prison, you hear a lyricist who examines the complexities and metaphors that unpin the very concept of the day.
Or LCD Soundsystem’s Christmas Will Break Your Heart, a melodious, very Murphy-esque exploration of the phrase “Home for the Holidays” and the anxieties, family disappointments, and loneliness so many feel under the weight and pressure of the season. I’ve lived this song so many times that I haven’t spent Christmas in Cleveland since 2011.
And then there’s Tom Waits. Exactly nobody should be surprised that his addition to the Christmas catalog is a song in letter form to a man named Charlie from the perspective of a ‘recovered,’ ‘now sober’ Minneapolis prostitute who claims she’s pregnant and married to a man offering to raise another’s baby. In typical Waits fashion, the song goes sideways when, at the end, the prostitute confesses that it’s all a lie, that she’s in prison and awaiting a Valentine’s Day parole.
Fewer songs about melting snowmen and more Raymond Carver-eque real-to-life escapades, please.
We’re all just human, after all, a messy collection of souls meandering our way through life’s complexities and disappointments. We may say “I’m ok, I’m good, see? I’m wearing reindeer antlers and hugging my cousin!” But when you punch into the scene, there’s always so much more going on. Life ain’t all holly and jolly and sugar cookies, so why the hell is the music?
I liked that grandma got run over by a reindeer, or that one time when she was sucking the sugar off Santa’s lips, or when John Denver urges his Dad to not get drunk this year, to keep the peace with Mom.
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
Thing is, I’m allergic to saccharine stories. I read dark shit and listen to sad songs for a reason. My favorite writers write about broken people. We learn when we can see ourselves in another’s story, or begin to understand something deeper when we watch someone far worse off than ourselves stumble through life.
And that’s the problem with Christmas. There’s so much sentimentality filtered through the holidays, so many falsehoods in the music, that it creates this unachievable set of expectations that inevitably leaves that bittersweet taste in our mouths. There’s so much pressure to create the perfect atmosphere at the expense of just being present and enjoying the moment.
But more than that, it creates an inaccessibility for people who struggle, who suffer, who mourn, or experience an extension of the realities of a hard-lived life. The perfect gift might take our minds off our problems for a brief moment, but it can’t change what haunts us every other day of the year. It’s as if we’ve created a societal shame for those who hide from the holidays, painting this false picture that you’re the only one struggling while everyone else is frollicking around with idyllic families.
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
Few songwriters exposed gaping wounds quite like Shane MacGowan, whose band The Pogues edged up and added street realties to traditional Celtic backdrops. And he did it again for Christmas with Fairytale of New York, introducing us to a down and out, drug-adled couple who waver between expressions of love and rage, and still manage to tip a mug in holiday cheer.
That’s Christmas in the real world, y’all, a scabby, grief-struck mess of realities all blurred together set to pretty lights and complex expressions of affection. I love this holiday when seen through that lens, when we can acknowledge that many things can be true at the same time, that misery and joy, harmony and grief, traditions and countercultures can all live together in one space.
I’ll end with Shane MacGowan’s words, who was born on Christmas, after all. “I don’t take it for granted that I was born on Christmas Day, Christ’s birthday, and I don’t like that people miss the point of Christmas. It’s not about Santa Claus and presents, it’s supposed to be about the teachings of Christ, who is love. Jesus forgives everyone and we need to practise forgiveness as much as we can. And Jesus teaches peace and love and tolerance, which is what we all need.”
The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing Galway Bay
And the bells are ringing out
For Christmas day
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
The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing Galway Bay
And the bells are ringing out
For Christmas day
~
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