Didn't Make the Cut Part 2: "Fairytale of New York"

Here's another song that's never made the cut. I'd never heard this song before starting to put together Christmas mixes and exchanging mixes with people. The song, "Fairytale of New York", is by The Pogues and featured Kirsty MacColl. It was released on thier 1987 album, "If I Should Fall from Grace with God." The Pogues were a Irish and English band that played "traditional Irish music with influences from punk rock", according to Wikipedia, and "reached international prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s." It's a fun song, but it isn't right for one of our CDs. It's about a drunken man's Christmas Eve memories of Christmases past while sleeping off a binge in a New York City drunk tank and contains some coarse language. Watch for Matt Dillon playing a cop in the video.

Original:



Christy Moore cover:



K.T.Tunstall & Ed Harcourt cover:



Lyrics:
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 you

Got 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 true

They'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 me

You 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 night

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing "Galway Bay"
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old s--t on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy f----t
Happy Christmas your a--e
I pray God it's our last

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 you