Verble at the Counter: Why "Fairytale of New York" is the best Christmas song . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jbdgZidu8

This song has enchanted me for years, not just because it's a perfect piece of music, but because of what it means on a more spiritual scale

It's all about taking second chances and failing.  It's about relationships that start with dreams and fantasies that come crashing to the ground.  It's about our addictions, our inabilities, our disabilities, our fortitudes, our desires, our misplaced intentions.

It reminds me of a sort of anti-Song of Solomon.  That book of the Bible is a call-and-response between two lovers, in their bedchambers, out in the streets, even wandering through the fields.  All through that book there is a chorus of singers encouraging the lovers, cheering them on.  It's almost like a Greek play.

This song takes that literary device and turns it on its head.  The two lovers are long past redemption, yet they feel trapped by each other.   They despise each other because they remind each other persistently of their failure.   The chorus (The boys of the NYPD choir) are singing on in the background, not cheering them on, just spinning the world on its normal way.  The world continues without us.

Yet, it's Christmas Day, and the bells are ringing out, and these two can not hear it.  The bells are there, the day has come, yet they are so numb to the advent of the Saviour and the King that it's just a dead refrain.  They are lost in the despair of being alone together.

That's what I love about this Christmas song: because it shows us who we are as humans.  It shows us of what we miss in the full experience of life and the full experience of what this day truly means.

So . . . Happy Christmas everyone!  Have yourselves some cheer, celebrate the birth of God wrapped in human skin, and my prayer is that you never wind up like Shane MacGowan!  ;-)

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 the corner
Then danced through the night

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing 'Galway Bay'
And the bells are ringing
Out for Christmas day

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Living there almost dead
On a drip in that bed

You scum bag
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

Song performed by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl

written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan