BBC doesn't like fairies

[Gob]

BBC Radio 1 is to air a censored version of the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York that removes the words “faggot” and “slut” from Kirsty MacColl’s verse. Radio 2 will continue to air the original version, while 6 Music will allow its DJs to choose the version they wish to play.



The BBC said: “We know the song is considered a Christmas classic and we will continue to play it this year, with our radio stations choosing the version of the song most relevant for their audience,” suggesting sensitivity over the words varies between Radio 1’s younger audience and the older listeners of Radio 2.

Adopting the characters of an argumentative but sentimental married couple, MacColl sings to Shane MacGowan: “You scumbag, you maggot / You cheap lousy faggot / Happy Christmas your arse / I pray God it’s our last.

The new Radio 1 version will have the line “you’re cheap and you’re haggard”, with the word “slut” earlier in the verse silenced. The rest of the song remains unchanged.

MacGowan defended the song in 2018, saying: “The word was used by the character because it fitted with the way she would speak and with her character. She is not supposed to be a nice person, or even a wholesome person. She is a woman of a certain generation at a certain time in history, and she is down on her luck and desperate. Her dialogue is as accurate as I could make it, but she is not intended to offend! She is just supposed to be an authentic character and not all characters in songs and stories are angels or even decent and respectable. Sometimes characters in songs and stories have to be evil or nasty in order to tell the story effectively.”

On its release in 1987, he explained: “My part is the man who’s got kicked out of the drunk tank on Christmas Eve night. His wife’s in hospital. She’s ill, and he’s just out of his skull. Then they’re having a row and he keeps on bringing it on back to the good times and she keeps handing out all the shit. I haven’t got anything in common with the actual part that I’m singing – Yul Brynner isn’t really the King of Siam – except in the sense that I’ve had arguments with women and it’s usually ended up with some kind of reconciliation.”

The song has frequently attracted controversy. The issue was revisited last year after an uncensored version of the song featured prominently in the Christmas special of Gavin and Stacey, a hit with families, which exposed the lyrics to many surprised younger listeners for the first time.

More here...

"And next on Radio 1 we have Cardi B rapping about her vagina, but that's ok, 'cos she's a woman..."

[MajGenl.Meade]

Yeah, that really says "Christmas", doesn't it?

Stupid filth

[Gob]

No, it says; "here is a song about two people's experience of Christmas."

Religion really seems to make you unhappy.

[MajGenl.Meade]

The BBC said: “We know the song is considered a Christmas classic . . ."

er no. Not by anyone with any sense. Grandma got run over by a reindeer. THAT'S a classic

[Gob]

[TPFKA@W]

Yeah, that really says "Christmas", doesn't it?

Stupid filth

It is probably representative of"Christmas" to more people than you could possibly understand.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Yeah, that really says "Christmas", doesn't it?

Stupid filth

It is probably representative of"Christmas" to more people than you could possibly understand.

And your evidence for that is . . . ?

[Big RR]

I have to agree with @W, it is representative of the Christmas that many people have, being alone and depressed, listening the the Christmas Music ("the boys in the NYPD choir were singing...) while they were lost and forgotten. Not that the people were blameless ("I could have been someone...Well so could anyone...you took my dreams from, when I first found you"), but it does show the sadness many feel at the time when the rest of the world seems happy.

The disillusionment of the immigrant with NYC is also interesting: "they have cars big as bars, they have rivers of gold...but the wind blows right through you, no place for the old" and how optimistic they were when their relationship began "you were handsome...you were pretty" and and the optimism of the season "I've got a feeling, This year's for me and you, so happy Christmas, I still love you baby, I can see a better time, When all our dreams come true" to the actual present "You'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 mugger, You cheap, lousy fugger, Happy Christmas, my ass, I pray God it's our last".

I can understand not liking the song or its message, but I completely don't see how it's stupid or filth. We may choose not to remember the lost and forgotten, but, paraphrasing what the ghost told scrooge, "they are still there".

eta: BTW, I am quoted the lyrics as I understood them; slut is clearly in the song, but I hear fugger rather than faggot (I thought it was just an English pronunciation of fucker) and mugger rather than, I don't know what they say, perhaps maggot? Either way, I don't see the language as any more objectionable than many other songs which I'm sure are broadcast.

[TPFKA@W]

Yeah, that really says "Christmas", doesn't it?

Stupid filth

It is probably representative of"Christmas" to more people than you could possibly understand.

And your evidence for that is . . . ?

Have you never delivered meals to the home bound at Christmas? I have. Many have no one, and I mean not a single soul. I have also worked more than my share of Christmases and the loneliness and sadness for some is palpable. You expect me to present evidence? You are way out of the loop.

[MajGenl.Meade]

It is probably representative of"Christmas" to more people than you could possibly understand.

And your evidence for that is . . . ?

Have you never delivered meals to the home bound at Christmas? I have. Many have no one, and I mean not a single soul. I have also worked more than my share of Christmases and the loneliness and sadness for some is palpable. You expect me to present evidence? You are way out of the loop.

Evidence to support the allegation that I could not possibly understand. Gotcha!

And those people were just as sad and pathetic on the day after Christmas, the week after, the month after, etc - so what makes a miserable song "a Christmas Classic"?

It's not as if it is a good as All I want for Christmas (is my two front teeth) now, is it?

[TPFKA@W]

You miss my point. I am not defending the song, only the sentiment. Christmas is a big ball of ugly sad for a lot of people. You really are coming across as an uncaring "Christian" in making light of it, or pooh poohing it.

I probably need a break from this place again. The incessant trolling and retaliatory trolling and this final straw.

See you all after the holidays.

[Sue U]

It's not as if it is a good as All I want for Christmas (is my two front teeth) now, is it?

But what do you think of this Christmas classic, Meade?



(One of my personal favorites.)

[Big RR]

And those people were just as sad and pathetic on the day after Christmas, the week after, the month after, etc -

Not necessarily. Christmas is often a sad time for many people, who are made even sadder because they see others happy and celebrating and feel they should be doing the same. After Christmas, their circumstances are still the same, but that extra push is removed. It's not always a happy, joyful time, and that's what this song show. Hell, one of the reasons Scrooge detested Christmas is becaus eit reminded him that he was not happy while many who had no right to be happy, were.

As for a "Christmas Classic", I'm not exactly sure what that is (especially if you were serious about the two front teeth song); but it's a song enjoy hearing at Christmas (and there are a good number of ones often play that I don't enjoy, even dread hearing. I don't begrudge people their favorites, I was merely responding to your characterizing it as filth. I won't say that I wouldn't rather listen to the Christmas parts of The Messiah (and this is he first Christmas in around 20 years that I won't be singing it in concert), but I also like to hear

both traditional carols and more modern songs like this and Father Christmas (that Sue posted), and temper the happy songs with more poignant ones.

[BoSoxGal]

Christmas is fun for some children, and for far fewer adults.

For the vast majority of people Christmas - and the holiday season in general - is a season of grief and melancholy. It is a time that holds the promise of a world that never has been and never will be for most people - whether those people have people or are utterly alone.

The Welsh have the perfect word for the feelings that Christmas evokes in so many of us; hiraeth. This is a feeling that some people struggle with from time to time, others struggle with most of the time, and a great many struggle with at Christmas.

When I was a child I loved Christmas; the last year I was truly happy at Christmas was the year I turned 19. I continued to try to summon the spirit and did better and worse over the years, but in the most recent of years I find myself just gritting teeth and bearing with it until the blessed appearance of the cold light of undecorated January. There is just so much grief.

As we are inching very close to 2000/day death toll, with a post Thanksgiving surge inevitable thanks to the unfathomable selfishness and recklessness of so many people, I suspect there will be far fewer happy people this Christmas. For tens of thousands it will be the beginning of the new tradition; marking a family death during the Christmas season.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I can't listen to that song without shedding a tear for Kirsty MacColl. Ewan MacColl's daughter of course; and he wrote what is possibly the greatest love song of the pop era -- The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.

And if you want just a good tune that is sheer fun, how about Kirsty's own song: There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis (but he's a liar and I'm not sure about you).

[BoSoxGal]

Oh geez I just looked her up; what a tragic death and especially for her poor boys to have witnessed it.

See, I’m thinking they don’t feel much happy at Christmas.

[Jarlaxle]

And those people were just as sad and pathetic on the day after Christmas, the week after, the month after, etc -

Not necessarily. Christmas is often a sad time for many people, who are made even sadder because they see others happy and celebrating and feel they should be doing the same. After Christmas, their circumstances are still the same, but that extra push is removed. It's not always a happy, joyful time, and that's what this song show. Hell, one of the reasons Scrooge detested Christmas is becaus eit reminded him that he was not happy while many who had no right to be happy, were.

As for a "Christmas Classic", I'm not exactly sure what that is (especially if you were serious about the two front teeth song); but it's a song enjoy hearing at Christmas (and there are a good number of ones often play that I don't enjoy, even dread hearing. I don't begrudge people their favorites, I was merely responding to your characterizing it as filth. I won't say that I wouldn't rather listen to the Christmas parts of The Messiah (and this is he first Christmas in around 20 years that I won't be singing it in concert), but I also like to hear

both traditional carols and more modern songs like this and Father Christmas (that Sue posted), and temper the happy songs with more poignant ones.

I recall that suicides have spiked around the hellidays for as long as records have been kept.

[BoSoxGal]

That is actually a much perpetuated myth about suicide:

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/ ... liday.html

[MajGenl.Meade]

It's not as if it is a good as All I want for Christmas (is my two front teeth) now, is it?

But what do you think of this Christmas classic, Meade?

(One of my personal favorites.)

Not heard of it before. Pretty good, I thought. Social commentary shines through, as in Dead End Street

But then my first two album purchases ever were Marble Arch . . . Kinks (Well Respected) and Donovan (Universal Soldier). So, you know . . . biased in favor of the oldsters. 1967 probably.

[Gob]

My fave Xmas song



They said there'll be snow at Christmas
They said there'll be peace on earth
But instead it just kept on raining
A veil of tears for the virgin birth
I remember one Christmas morning
A winter's light and a distant choir
And the peal of a bell and that Christmas tree smell
And their eyes full of tinsel and fire

They sold me a dream of Christmas
They sold me a silent night
And they told me a fairy story
'Till I believed in the Israelite
And I believed in father Christmas
And I looked to the sky with excited eyes
'Till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn
And I saw him and through his disguise

I wish you a hopeful Christmas
I wish you a brave new year
All anguish, pain and sadness
Leave your heart and let your road be clear
They said there'll be snow at Christmas
They said there'll be peace on earth
Hallelujah, Noel be it heaven or hell
The Christmas we get we deserve