Each day until Christmas, I am going to write briefly about a Christmas song I enjoy. Because I can, that’s why. And I an unabashed corny dork.
Some of the lyrics in this song have not aged well — I hope that “You sum bag you maggot/you cheap lousy f*ggot” if written today would keep the venom but lose the slur — but the song is still surprisingly moving. It is sad and hopeful at the same time. It is good Christmas music. And by good Christmas music I mean music that captures either hopeful feeling of what Christmas is supposed to represent — peace on earth, charity, all the mushy liberal stuff — or the pissed off feeling you get when you realize that humanity hasn’t managed to come close to living up to those ideals. A Fairytale of New York perfectly captures the disappointment when you have gotten to another Christmas completely messed up and the hope that maybe next year it can be better. It is also a great rock and roll song, if you can allow for the period in which it was written. The music slows and accelerates as the emotions do, carrying you along with the two broken, sad, hopeful singers as they try to find something in this Christmas to make all their previous terrible ones mean something good.
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 youGot 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 trueThey’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 meYou 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 nightThe boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing “Galway Bay”
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas dayYou’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 f*ggot
Happy Christmas, your arse
I pray God it’s our lastThe 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 youThe boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing “Galway Bay”
And the bells are ringing out
For Christmas day
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