Fairytale of New York

Finer and MacGowan wrote it, beginning in 1985. Finer's first idea was a sailor in New York looking back across the ocean to Ireland, until his wife Marcia suggested a conversation between a couple at Christmas instead. MacGowan took the title from J. P. Donleavy's 1973 novel A Fairy Tale of New York, which Finer had been reading. Where the idea came from is disputed: MacGowan said Elvis Costello bet the band could not write a Christmas hit, and manager Frank Murray said the suggestion was his.

An early version with Cait O'Riordan singing the woman's part was put aside, and Chevron later said it lacked the full, confident performance the song needed. In March 1987 a demo was recorded at Abbey Road with MacGowan singing both parts. At RAK Studios that year Steve Lillywhite took the tape home and had his wife Kirsty MacColl record a guide vocal. The band were impressed and she became MacGowan's duet partner, though the two never recorded the song together in the studio. Lillywhite also solved the joining of MacGowan's and Finer's sections by recording them separately and editing them together. The strings and French horns were recorded at Townhouse Studios on the last day of the album sessions, arranged by Fiachra Trench after Fearnley sketched a version on keyboard. MacGowan later called it "our Bohemian Rhapsody".

Chart life

Released on 23 November 1987, it spent five weeks at number one in Ireland and reached number two in the UK, kept from the Christmas top spot by the Pet Shop Boys' Always on My Mind. Lillywhite said he loved that it never reached number one: "It's for the underdog." It has re-entered the UK chart every December since 2005 and had sold 1.2 million copies in the UK by September 2017. An ITV poll in December 2012 named it the Nation's Favourite Christmas Song. The video was directed by Peter Dougherty and filmed in New York in November 1987, with Matt Dillon as a police officer. On 13 December 2023 the Pogues reissued it as a charity 7-inch to benefit the Dublin Simon Community.