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The Best of the Pogues album cover by The Pogues

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1987 · From the album The Best of the Pogues

Fairytale of New York (feat. Kirsty MacColl)

by The Pogues

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04:32 Runtime

The reading

Two Irish immigrants in New York trade a shared Christmas Eve memory and a bitter present-day argument, mourning the American dream they sold each other

02 · Interpretation

Fairytale of New York: The Christmas Song That Refuses to Lie

E Editorial Desk

Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl's duet opens in a New York drunk tank and ends with church bells, and the distance between those two places is the whole song. Released at the tail end of 1987, it arrived as a deliberate anti-Christmas carol: a holiday standard that refuses to pretend the holiday is uncomplicated, especially for the Irish diaspora it speaks from and to.

The first verse sets a frame story. A man sleeping off a bender hears an old drunk predict his own death and sing an Irish drinking song, "The Rare Old Mountain Dew." That song cues the memory that follows. He turns his face away and dreams of her, and from here the lyric slips between past and present without warning. His next thought is a horse that came in at long odds, which gives him just enough optimism to wish her a happy Christmas and imagine a better year ahead.

Then the song pivots to what New York looked like when they arrived. The couplet about cars as big as bars and rivers of gold is the immigrant myth in miniature, immediately undercut by a wind that goes right through you. The city is wealthy and cold in the same breath. She remembers him promising Broadway; he remembers her as the queen of New York City, dancing through a night when Sinatra was on the jukebox and the band played encores. This is the fairytale the title half-promises and half-mocks.

The NYPD choir singing "Galway Bay" is the song's central image, and it is pointedly fictional. There is no NYPD choir in that sense, and "Galway Bay" is an Irish emigrant's lament for a homeland he cannot return to. The song places that lament in the mouths of American policemen on Christmas morning, which is exactly the kind of sentimental vision a lonely, drunk immigrant would conjure. The bells ringing for Christmas Day sit on top of it like a film score.

Then comes the argument. The exchange of insults, culminating in the notorious "Happy Christmas, your arse," is written as the kind of fight only people with a long shared history can have. She is on a drip, possibly in a hospital bed; he is, by her account, a bum and a punk. Both are using Christmas as a weapon. The language is ugly on purpose. The word "faggot," which has been edited or debated in broadcast versions for years, is placed in the mouth of a character at her worst moment, not offered as the song's own voice. Whatever one makes of that choice, the song is clearly dramatising cruelty, not endorsing it.

The last verse is where the fairytale gives up its last defences. "I could have been someone," he says, and she answers, "Well, so could anyone." It is the flattest, truest line in the song. Then she accuses him of taking her dreams, and he answers that he kept them safe with his own because he cannot make it alone. It is simultaneously a confession of love and an admission of codependency. The NYPD choir returns one more time, and the song ends without resolving whether these two will reconcile, separate, or simply wake up hungover on Christmas Day.

Why it endures

Most Christmas songs flatten the holiday into one emotion. "Fairytale of New York" holds several at once: nostalgia, bitterness, tenderness, humiliation, and a stubborn flicker of hope that this year, maybe, the horse comes in. It became a perennial in Britain and Ireland because it sounds like how Christmas actually feels to a lot of people, especially those far from home. MacColl's voice, bright and unsentimental, keeps the song from tipping into self-pity; MacGowan's slurred grandeur keeps it from tipping into cynicism. Between them they built the rare holiday song that gets better the older you get.

Themes catalogued

immigration addiction christmas disillusionment codependent love

03 · Lyrics

"Fairytale of New York (feat. Kirsty MacColl)"

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 18 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

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

Lyrics via Google. Copyright belongs to rights holders.

04 · FAQ

Frequently asked

Who are the two characters in Fairytale of New York?
They are an unnamed Irish immigrant couple in New York, looking back on their arrival years earlier. MacGowan's character is in a drunk tank on Christmas Eve; MacColl's is apparently in a hospital bed on a drip. The song never gives them names because they stand in for a whole generation of Irish emigrants chasing a Broadway that never arrived.
Is there really an NYPD choir that sings Galway Bay?
No. The New York Police Department does not have a choir in the sense the lyric imagines, and "Galway Bay" is a traditional Irish emigrant ballad about longing for home. The image is a drunk man's fantasy of American policemen singing an Irish song back to him on Christmas morning, which is why it works.
What does the line "I could have been someone" mean in Fairytale of New York?
It is a moment of self-pity that MacColl's character immediately deflates with "Well, so could anyone." The exchange captures the song's refusal to let either character off the hook. He is claiming the American dream failed him; she is pointing out that everyone makes that claim, and it doesn't excuse what they have done to each other.
Why is Fairytale of New York considered an anti-Christmas song?
It uses every Christmas-song convention, bells, choirs, Sinatra, a love duet, while placing them inside a story about addiction, failure, and a screaming argument. Rather than rejecting sentimentality outright, it lets sentiment and squalor sit in the same verse, which is closer to how many people actually experience the holiday.
What is "The Rare Old Mountain Dew" referenced in the opening verse?
It is a traditional Irish song about poteen, illegal homemade whiskey. Having the old man in the drunk tank sing it sets the scene as unmistakably Irish and triggers the narrator's memory, which is the device the whole song hangs on. It also underlines that drink is the frame around every memory he has left.
Why has the word "faggot" in Fairytale of New York been controversial?
The slur appears in the middle of an insult-trading verse between the two characters. Some broadcasters, including the BBC at times, have edited or muted the line; defenders argue the word belongs to a cruel fictional character at her worst moment rather than to the song's own voice. The debate has recurred almost every December since the late 2000s.
Why does Fairytale of New York stay popular at Christmas?
It is one of the only holiday standards that acknowledges loneliness, disappointment, and complicated love without abandoning tenderness. MacColl's clear vocal and MacGowan's ragged one balance each other so the song never collapses into either sweetness or bile, which is why it reliably returns to the UK and Irish charts every December.
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