"Fairytale of New York" is a song written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan and recorded by their London-based band the Pogues, featuring English singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl on vocals.

Although the single has never been the UK Christmas number one, being kept at number two on its original release in 1987 by the Pet Shop Boys' cover of "Always on My Mind", it has proved enduringly popular with both music critics and the public: to date, the song has reached the UK Top 20 on twenty separate occasions since its original release in 1987, including every year at Christmas since 2005.

It's even called "A Fairy Tale of New York", it's quite sloppy, more like "A Pair of Brown Eyes" than "Sally MacLennane", but there's also a céilidh bit in the middle which you can definitely dance to.

[12]MacGowan had decided to name the song after J. P. Donleavy's 1973 novel A Fairy Tale of New York, which Finer was reading at the time and had left lying around the recording studio.

[9][13] In the same Melody Maker interview, MacGowan expressed regret that the song had not been completed in time to be released for Christmas that year and hinted that the track would appear on an EP that the Pogues were due to record shortly.

In January 1986, the group recorded the song during the sessions with Costello that would produce the Poguetry in Motion EP, with bass player Cait O'Riordan singing the female part.

[8] The majority of the lyrics had been written while MacGowan was recovering in a bed in Malmö after being struck down with double pneumonia during a Pogues tour of Scandinavia in late 1985 – he later said, "you get a lot of delirium and stuff, so I got quite a few good images out of that".

[9] Among the members of the city's Irish-American community who saw the show and visited the band backstage after the concert were film-maker Peter Dougherty and actor Matt Dillon: both later became friends with the Pogues and played important roles in the video for "Fairytale of New York".

Another inspiration was Sergio Leone's film Once Upon a Time in America, which MacGowan and whistle player Spider Stacy watched over and over again in the tour bus.

Apart from shaping the ideas for the lyrics, MacGowan wrote a slow, piano-based introduction to "Fairytale of New York" influenced by the film's score by Ennio Morricone; the intro was later edited together with the more upbeat original melody to create the final song.

[13] The problems at Stiff were eventually resolved, and the Pogues were finally able to enter a recording studio again in early 1987 to start work on their third album, now with Steve Lillywhite producing.

A new demo of "Fairytale of New York" was recorded at London's Abbey Road Studios in March 1987, with MacGowan singing both the male and female roles.

Having worked on her vocals meticulously, Lillywhite brought the recording back to the studio where the Pogues were impressed with MacColl's singing and realised she would be the ideal voice for the female character in the song.

"[19] The song follows an Irish immigrant's Christmas Eve reverie about holidays past while sleeping off a binge in a New York City drunk tank.

When an inebriated old man also in the cell sings a passage from the Irish ballad "The Rare Old Mountain Dew", the narrator (MacGowan) begins to dream of a former lover.

[20] The remainder of the song (which may be an internal monologue) takes the form of a call and response between the couple, their youthful hopes crushed by alcoholism and drug addiction, as they reminisce and bicker on Christmas Eve.

[13] The phrases "Sinatra was swinging" and "cars big as bars" seem to place the song in the late 1940s,[13] although the music video clearly depicts a contemporary 1980s New York.

As MacColl and MacGowan's dialogue descends from the ecstasy of their first kiss into an increasingly vitriolic argument their words puts the average family's seasonal bickering into perspective.

[13] Murray recalled that the Pipes and Drums had been drinking on the coach that brought them to the video shoot, and by the time they arrived they were more drunk than the band, refusing to work unless they were supplied with more alcohol.

In Sounds, Neil Perry awarded it "Single of the Week" and observed, "In fine MacGowan tradition it's not long before the insults are flying, still carried innocently along by the magical – and unforgettable – melody.

[24] Andy Darling of Melody Maker stated that he was turned off by the idea that drinking was a prerequisite for artistic genius, but that "this [song] makes up for a lot though".

When the song was performed on Top of the Pops on its initial release, the BBC requested that MacColl's singing of "arse" be replaced with the perceived-less-offensive "ass".

When Katie Melua performed the song with the Pogues on CD:UK in December 2005, ITV censored the word "arse", but left "faggot" uncensored.

[37] On 2 December 2023, The Telegraph reported that the UK's Boom Radio would play the uncensored version of "Fairytale of New York" after 91% of listeners who responded to a poll said they would not be offended by the lyrics.

Although the song finished 1987 as the 48th best seller of the year despite only a month's sales, it was denied the UK Christmas number one by the Pet Shop Boys' synth-pop version of "Always on My Mind".

[20] Due to the eligibility of downloads to chart even without a physical release, coupled with a more recent further boost from streaming data, the song has re-entered the Top 75 every December since 2005.

"[19] On 22 December 2005, the Pogues performed the song on a Friday Night with Jonathan Ross Christmas special on BBC One, with the female vocals taken by singer Katie Melua.

It is loved because it feels more emotionally "real" than the homesick sentimentality of White Christmas or the bullish bonhomie of Merry Xmas Everybody, but it contains elements of both and the story it tells is an unreal fantasy of 1940s New York dreamed up in 1980s London."

[68] His rendition included changes to the first and third lines of the song's controversial third verse, which respectively became "You're a bum, you're a punk, you're an old hag on junk" and "You scumbag, you maggot, you’re cheap and you’re haggard.” Note: Shanne Bradley was one of MacGowan's bandmates in his previous group the Nips.