and the bells are ringing out for Christmas Day
I am nothing if not open to being called to action in order to write a meandering blog post on something I actually have a lot of thoughts about but wanted to spare you a diatribe.
It’s Christmas Eve babe, in the drunk tank. It’s discourses big scene. More dependable than the setting sun and the rising tide is the understanding that every year, at this time, we will suffer the inevitable “Fairytale of New York” conversation, specifically the line in the 1987 Christmas classic where Kirsty MacColl sings:
you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot
I know, I get it. It’s a hard word for some and I’m not here to tell you whether or not you should feel any specific way about its inclusion in a beautiful song about a couple disastrously in love with each other and disastrously in love with being disastrous.
To me, there’s something in the grit of it all that lends to the beauty, like fresh fallen snow filling the gutter on a busy street on Christmas Eve. The Pogues, allegedly, wrote the song because Elvis Costello bet him that he couldn’t do it. It’s a song of contrasts; this band as a collective gathering of rough hewn troubadours of heartache and drink, Shane MacGowan sees and sings to the dark corners of the barroom that many would rather avert their gaze to and this is an important piece in the puzzle that builds the tremendous vision of beauty that is “Fairytale of New York”. These two people at the centre, Irish Immigrants in a jail cell who once felt so much hope and promise now embittered by time and circumstance.
These are characters drawn and given breath, and with that comes the words that have been censored and stricken-through over the years. The BBC wouldn’t let them play it on Top of the Pops unless they changed arse to ass, which feels like a lateral move, and then again asked them to please not say the word faggot. MacColl would eventually change the lyric to you’re cheap and you’re haggard which is a fine, if not somewhat flat, substitute.
The intention, as MacGowan would come to explain, is that the couple at the heart of the song are not supposed to be good or perfect. He is drawing these two as images that feel lived in, that same texture in their voices as they foresee their own imminent demises on the horizon. MacGowan’s character in the song calls MacColl’s an old slut on junk, which has also been edited out in revisions over the years.
Now, when you hear “Fairytale of New York” on the radio while idly picking through a perfect pyramid of satsuma’s you’re likely to hear the edited versions. Slut and Arse and Faggot all wiped clean and replaced with the revised vision of a holiday classic. Notably, other songs are still allowed on the radio that mutter the word faggot in them, like Dire Straits “Money For Nothing” which has an entire verse around using the word much more pointedly, referring to a little faggot with the earring and the make-up. The word exists on every line in an entire verse, but you will be hard pressed to hear a censored version of it on the radio.
I tell you all this because I think context and intention is key in all of this. MacGowan is telling a story about people and giving them blood and tears and sweat and in all of that they are imperfect, desperate and broken people and sometimes people in that station are less than careful with their vocabulary and they will hurl words barbed with sharp and deadly things in order to cut twice as hard. There is also the argument that like the usage of arse that faggot is used as Irish slang, meaning someone who is lazy (the bundle of stick of it all).
I also think that there are a LOT of people who get mad about the "sanitation of lyrics" about this song that are just mad they no longer get to hear the word faggot on the radio and it starts to feel more like storm chasing for people who want to live in a world where slurs are back on the menu. Some people simply have hearts built of broken desires and I think we should bring back being haunted by three spirits in the night to inspire new behaviours.
So why are we here? my friend Riley MacLeod (read Aftermath, it’s the best video game website on the internet) challenged me, like Elvis Costello betting Shane MacGowan he couldn’t write a Christmas single, and I am nothing if not open to being called to action in order to write a meandering blog post on something I actually have a lot of thoughts about but wanted to spare you a diatribe. This is not the definitive list that Riley asked for, because honestly most that I can find all rely on the same choice words to replace the slurs. Rather, here's three examples that fit the holy trinity of slur replacement in one of the most popular Christmas songs of all time. There is also a fourth, the grinch option, because all stories need a villain.
Ed Sheeran and Anne-Marie - BBC Radio 1
Ed Sheeran calls her an old gal on junk, which feels like bringing safety scissors to a knife fight.
Anne-Marie swaps in blagger which near as I can tell means "someone who gets what they want in a clever way and by saying things that are not true". this doesn't quite fit as a replacement the same way that haggard does, it feels more like searching for a replacement in the moment because you forgot a slur was coming down the line and needed something fast.
″
You scumbag, you maggot, you've taped over Taggart
I love this one actually. In a bitter fight in a whirlwind of emotions you are letting every little pent up morsel fight its way to the surface and someone taping over your shows is the sort of thing you will burrow deep into the coldest parts of your heart until it’s time to open the cabinets and let the demons out to dance.
Hozier, joined by guest vocalists Melissa McMillan, Rachel Beauregard, and Kamilah SNL
you’re cheap and you’re haggard with a cheeky little wink to let you know that she’s thinking it. Fun!
Haggard is the widely chosen alternative (adopted by MacColl herself), that is featured in a LOT of covers of this song, including one I found of an Irish classroom Christmas video that I clicked on wondering if they were gonna force a bunch of kids to have to write long notes app apologies about the time they said "that word" in a school video.
Jon Bon Jovi
You’re a squirrel ‘cause you’re nuts / You’re a kick in the gut
I would rather people just say the slur at this point.