Fairytale of New York soars to the top of the iTunes charts during the campaign to make Shane MacGowan’s hit Christmas No1 – as baby boomer radio station promises to play the original, expletive-filled version
Shane MacGowan’s hit Fairytale of New York has risen to the top of the iTunes chart amid a campaign to make it Christmas number one after his death.
The classic Christmas carol, released by Irish rock band The Pogues with singer Kirsty MacColl in 1987, has topped the charts every year, but has never reached the coveted festive top spot.
Fans of the band are pushing to give it the title they feel it deserves following MacGowan’s death last week at the age of 65, and it looks like things are off to a good start with the song topping the iTunes charts today UK chart position.
The song has also reached number six in the UK Spotify charts, while reaching number 18 in the weekly Official Charts chart on Friday.
The national anthem is over behind hits from Wham! and Mariah Carey, but chart bosses say the 36-year-old anthem will be a ‘real contender’ on the last Friday before Christmas.
In the 1987 classic, Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl play a duet
The song has proven extremely popular, although it has proven controversial in recent years due to some of the lyrics, including one in which MacColl calls MacGowan a ‘f****t’.
The late Irish rocker’s wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, has thrown her support behind the campaign, saying she is “strongly in favor” of an attempt to reach the top of the charts.
Clarke, 57, who first met MacGowan when she was 16 and was by his side when he died on Thursday, has given her approval to the bid to give the song the chart position fans think it deserves in memory of the raucous folk star .
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Irish journalist Clarke said: ‘It would be nice, wouldn’t it? It should be Christmas number one. You absolutely should. I’m a big supporter of that.’
Clarke also told the program that behind closed doors, MacGowan was a very different man to his very cynical and vocal public persona.
She added that the staunch Irish republican enjoyed watching documentaries about the royal family and cried when Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and Diana died.
She said: ‘He was always buying flowers and he was just a very romantic man.’
It comes as a baby boomer radio station pledged to play the original version of the song for its listeners over the festive period, following controversy in previous years over the BBC’s ‘censorship’.
Boom Radio said that despite the classic Christmas song containing the homophobic slur ‘f****t’ and MacGowen’s character calling his lover ‘an old sl*t on junk’, listeners would not be offended and thus released the version would take place in 1987.
Fairytale of New York is The Pogues’ best-known song and a festive favorite – but it’s never been number one at Christmas
Victoria Mary Clarke pictured with Shane MacGowan in 1999. The pair met when Clarke was 16
The couple pictured in 2012. They were engaged for 11 years before finally marrying in Copenhagen in 2018
A survey on the station’s website found that 91 percent of respondents thought it should be played uncensored.
In recent years, some radio stations have gone to great lengths to hide the word, with BBC Radio 1 muting it in 2007 because ‘members of the public might find it offensive’.
Although the decision was later reversed due to public outcry, the same channel said in 2020 that it would play the censored version of the song, while BBC Radio 2 pledged to continue playing the original.
The Pogues themselves released a new version of the song the same year, replacing the words ‘you cheap lousy f****t’ with the more PG ‘you’re cheap and you’re feral’.
Phil Riley, co-founder of Boom Radio, told the Telegraph: ‘These decisions are always a challenge and they all have to be taken in context.
‘Our adult audience recognizes the potential for offense and that language and attitudes have evolved over their lives.
‘In a sense, texts from the past illustrate the degree of welcome change. They like to hear songs in their original form wherever possible.’
The version that reached the top of the iTunes chart and the upper reaches of the Spotify chart is the original, including the controversial lyrics.
MacGowan, 65, died at home in Dublin on Thursday, surrounded by his family, after developing pneumonia. He and Clarke married in Copenhagen in 2018 after being engaged for 11 years and dating for decades.
He had been released from the hospital just over a week earlier after months of treatment for viral encephalitis, a condition that causes swelling in the brain.
The Pogues’ frontman Shane MacGowan with Kirsty MacColl, with whom he duetted in Fairytale of New York
MacGowan beams at The World nightclub in New York in February 1986
A candle burns next to a photo of The Pogues frontman at Dublin’s Mansion House after the city’s mayor opened a book of condolence following the singer’s death
His death prompted an outpouring of tributes from around the world and launched a renewed campaign to get Fairytale of New York to number one in Britain for the first time.
And on Friday, a poll by bookmakers Ladbrokes again named the song Britain’s favorite party song of all time.
Bookmakers have lowered their odds on the song – a drunken lament by an Irish immigrant in America as he reminisces about a former lover – to reach first place.
It’s a firm favorite to be number one at Christmas, ahead of both competing festive songs and hits from the likes of Taylor Swift.
Spotify chart data from November 29, the day before MacGowan died, shows the song was the 23rd most streamed song in Britain that day, with 190,288 plays.
But on November 30, when news of his death emerged, the number of streams more than doubled to 390,657, and the song was the sixth most listened to song in the UK that day.
It also recorded 694,571 listens as of December 1, becoming the fourth most played song on the platform.
Martin Talbot, CEO of Official Charts, said of the song: ‘It’s a real contender for this year’s Christmas Number 1 – a chart position this classic has never achieved before. What a fitting tribute to Shane that would be.”
Following his death, the creative director of stage show Fairytale Of New York has redoubled his efforts to get MacGowan’s best-known song to the top of the UK charts for the first time.
Ged Graham told the PA news agency that although Fairytale Of New York has never topped the charts, it is the most played Christmas carol in Britain.
“It’s a great Christmas story,” he said. “It’s honest and real, and honest and real music lasts forever.
“It’s not a Merry Christmas. It’s a realistic, true Christmas story. Everything about Christmas isn’t all fun and bells and whistles and sweetness, it has an earthiness and a wonderful atmosphere that just speaks to people, especially the Irish people in Britain.
‘Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl… are just two real people. They don’t look like movie stars, they don’t look like George Michael and Wham! This is what my friends look like.”
In the past, the lyrics have been changed for both live performances and radio play. Official Charts does not distinguish between versions when collecting sales data to determine the Official Top 40.
The results are announced on the last Friday before Christmas, December 22, with sales and streams from the Friday before until 11:59 PM on Thursday counting towards that week’s charts.