#1 Fairytale of NY
I, like many others, believe the words of Shane MacGowan are damned and damn good. he is a poet, if a poet is a person who can find allure where there shouldn’t be.
far from a heavenly gift, this is a curse. the poet is doomed because the poet can see Reality better than most, but do little to fix it.
there is Reality, and there is Romanticism. poetry squats somewhere in the middle. Xmas, definitely a private grade-listed property, is a place where both meet. if you catch up with people you seldom see, it is also a time of the year where the self and the idea of self clash at their most intimate. most folks, with time, learn to remember the communion as children and see the fissures as adults.
misleading chorus aside, there is no communion in Fairytale of NY. a reckless relationship crosses an ocean to find the inescapable tragedy of self-hatred projected onto each other. we hear there have been broken promises of a Romantic future, yet these promises couldn’t have been truly broken because they hinged on illusions. familiarity breeds contempt, unfulfilled fantasies turn into resentfulness.
we believe, after the skirmishes and the bile, that MacGowan has left us with a happy ending: “can’t make it all alone/i’ve built my dreams around you.” but here is where the root of the problem is earthed, in the inescapable erosion that engulfs the couple, an addiction stronger than the whisky and heroin that punctuates their dialogue. much like the cyclical return of xmas, their pattern will keep repeating until their impending deaths (the proximity of which is referenced twice).
in celebrating JC’s impossible birth, xmas also celebrates the domestication of death. it’s all there in the symbolism of uprooting a tree to bring it indoors, depriving it of air but adorning it with lights. the song is also about uprooting, (see: ‘The Rare Old Mountain Dew’ as a symbol of nostalgia but also as melancholy continuity) yet Fairytale of NY echoes not what its lost, but rather what did not and will not change. the subconscious parallels with xmas and an unhealthy dose of souvenir Irishness are what makes it so pervasive.
“With sweet vanilla rooibos & chocolate-y notes, this creamy Irish coffee inspired blend is a Christmas dream come true!”
Fairytale of NY (the tea) tastes like coffee and milk, not like codependency and whisky.
you won’t find the pogues in a song. you won’t find solace in fairytale of ny. you won’t find Ireland in a teacup, and you certainly won’t find tea in this tea.













