It’s the same battle every year at Christmastime: the sinking feeling that your ears are being attacked again with Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
And now, 28 years after its initial release, Carey’s 1994 classic has once again reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100… for the fourth time in a row.
nothing we can do about it right now. It’s Mariah’s month and we’re just living in it.
However, there is another Christmas tune we should talk about: The Fairytale of New York by The Pogues, which is once again being attacked under the guise of “protection.”
In fact, the BBC is at it again and BBC Radio 2 is the latest station to censor the popular 1987 Christmas song by Anglo-Irish Celtic punk band The Pogues, after BBC Radio 1 censored the song earlier in 2020.
This is hardly new, because every Christmas season, the song sung by Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl comes under fire for its language, in particular the use of the homophobic slander “fag” and the word “slutty.”
The song lyrics discussed annually can be found in the following verse:
You are a bum
You are a punk
You’re an old skank on trash
Lies there almost dead on a drip in the bed
You bastard, you bastard.
Du billige, lausige Schwuchtel.
Merry Christmas, your butt
I pray God it’s our last
A chronicle of insult
The list of startling censorship regarding “Fairytale of New York” is long.
The song was censored by the BBC in 1987 for live performances on Top of the Pops, including the line “Happy Christmas your arse/Thank God it’s our last”; and again in 1992 when the word “Faggot” had to be converted to “Haggard.”
ITV criticised it in 2005 and BBC Radio 1 changed the words “fag” and “slutty” in 2007 to “avoid insults,” while the more traditionally conservative Radio 2 continued to play the original version. The BBC later reversed this decision following a huge public outcry.
RTÉ, Ireland’s state broadcaster, tweeted in 2018 about her discomfort with the song lyrics and called for the word “fag” to be deleted. Luckily, RTÉ promised to continue playing it “without omissions” on its radio stations.
In 2019 and 2020, the number of complaints prompted BBC Radio 1 to beep “fag” and “slutty,” while BBC Radio 2 once again stood firm and played the entire song without censored words.
Finally, this year, BBC Radio 2 gave in to demands for censorship and an alternative version of MacColl singing “You’re Cheap and You’re Haggard.” This was the version that was included for the official Marvel soundtrack of the special short film The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special 2022.
schon schwindt?
You should be too — and that’s just the shortened version.
In a statement, Radio 2 claimed: “We’re reflecting on what we’re hearing from many of our listeners who love the song but find some of the lyrics in 2022 harrowing.”
hard to believe when you consider that “Fairytale of New York” is the most-played Christmas song in Great Britain and has been in the top 75 every year in December since 2005.
The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan has previously spoken out in favour of using the insulting words in his painfully sad ballad, as the characters in the song are neither “angel” nor “decent.”
“The word was used by the character because it suited her way of speaking and her character. She shouldn’t be a nice person or even a healthy person,” MacGowan said in 2018 about the character who sings these lyrics. “She is a woman of a particular generation at a particular time in history and she has lost her luck and is desperate.”
“Not all characters in songs and stories are angels, or even decent and respectable. Sometimes they have to be evil or evil to tell the story effectively,” he added.
When you consider that the song is essentially about an increasingly drunken couple (played by MacGowan and the late MacColl) fighting, as well as about broken dreams and shattered hopes, it fits.
In addition, many have pointed out that there is clearly no homophobic intent behind the text and that the word “fag” was once used as a colloquial language in Ireland to mean lazy or useless.
An act of “cultural vandalism”
Let’s face the facts — this is getting ridiculous. Does the BBC not have any other turkeys to stuff right now?
Art is meant to break through and provoke barriers, and being insulted when you say words that are taken out of context ultimately changes an art form. Cleaned versions are not only incorrect, but also potentially dangerous.
The BBC continues to show a level of puritanism that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else in Europe — let alone for a Christmas song; it’s a form of patronizing hypersensitivity normally expected from the US (more on that later).
At this point, the British are just making a complete fool of themselves. Especially when you consider that their actions will hopefully backfire and trigger another example of the Streisand effect, which shows that attempts to remove or censor information often have the unintended effect of increasing awareness of that information. Hopefully, more people will listen to and download the original version this Christmas to avoid the childish actions of an organization that really should know better.
And once again, when you consider that “Fairytale of New York” is the most-played Christmas bop of the 21st century in Great Britain and is often described as the best Christmas song of all time in British and Irish surveys, it really boils down to a simple equation for the BBC: either play the original song or don’t play it at all.
Songs can be faulty, but their lyrics must be protected. Changing and maiming her destroys her soul and is nothing less than an act of “cultural vandalism,” as Irish journalist Ella Whelan brilliantly summarized.
And as the always educated and wonderful Nick Cave wrote in his Red Right Hand Files newsletter in 2020, in a way that overshadows anything this article could ever achieve:
“The idea that a word or line in a song can simply be replaced by another without causing significant damage to it is an idea that can only be maintained by those who know nothing about the fragility of songwriting.
Changing the word “fag” with the nonsensical word “emaciated” destroys the song by emptying the air at its most important and reckless moment and depriving it of its value. It becomes a song that has been manipulated, compromised, tamed and castrated and that can no longer be described as a great song. It is a song that has lost its truth, honor and integrity — a song that has kneeled down and enabled the BBC to do its dark and difficult business.
The BBC, this gatekeeper of our brittle sensibility, always acts in our best interest and continues to mutilate an artifact of immense cultural value, taking away something from us at Christmas that can neither be measured nor replaced. It continues and we are even less in favour of it.”
You can — and should — read his beautifully written full statement on Fairytale Of New York here.
The United States versus Christmas
As mentioned above, the BBC has continued to display some bead clips that were normally reserved for the USA, which has a long criminal record when it comes to banning Christmas songs.
Here are just a few examples of artists who have been blacklisted by radio DJs:
Jimmy Boyd
“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” premiered in 1952 by 13-year-old Jimmy Boyd, is a festive number that tells the story of a child who witnesses his mother having an affair with Santa Claus and then realizes that it is his father in disguise. The Boston branch of the Roman Catholic Church wasn’t particularly pleased that the birth of Jesus Christ was associated with the shocking act of kissing. This led to boycotts of radio stations. It wasn’t until Columbia Records explained to the archdiocese that Santa Claus in the song was actually the father in disguise that the ban was lifted in time for the following Christmas.
Elvis Presley
Elvis’s version of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” from 1957 was banned when a judge in Jacksonville accused the singer of “undermining America’s youth.” His harmless cover song and festive album were therefore banned and a DJ in Portland was even fired for playing “White Christmas” on his show.
Frank Lößer
Frank Loesser’s popular 1959 classic “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was considered shocking at the time because the idea of blaming the weather so that one person could spend the night away from marriage was too much of a taboo. In recent years, the song has been banned by several US radio stations (2018) because of its “creepy” lyrics, as the song does not promote approval and lines like “The answer is no” caused frowns.
This was parodied in a brilliant skit by Key & Peele:
So while it’s easy to giggle at others, the BBC’s censorship of “Fairytale of New York” just means that even in 2022 — when in countries that are proud to stand up for free speech — we really should know better to defend artists’ works from any form of censorship remains depressingly important.
So merry Christmas, your ass, I’m praying to God it’s our last.
It’s the same battle every year at Christmastime: the sinking feeling that your ears are being attacked again with Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
And now, 28 years after its initial release, Carey’s 1994 classic has once again reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100… for the fourth time in a row.
nothing we can do about it right now. It’s Mariah’s month and we’re just living in it.
However, there is another Christmas tune we should talk about: The Fairytale of New York by The Pogues, which is once again being attacked under the guise of “protection.”
In fact, the BBC is at it again and BBC Radio 2 is the latest station to censor the popular 1987 Christmas song by Anglo-Irish Celtic punk band The Pogues, after BBC Radio 1 censored the song earlier in 2020.
This is hardly new, because every Christmas season, the song sung by Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl comes under fire for its language, in particular the use of the homophobic slander “fag” and the word “slutty.”
The song lyrics discussed annually can be found in the following verse:
You are a bum
You are a punk
You’re an old skank on trash
Lies there almost dead on a drip in the bed
You bastard, you bastard.
Du billige, lausige Schwuchtel.
Merry Christmas, your butt
I pray God it’s our last
A chronicle of insult
The list of startling censorship regarding “Fairytale of New York” is long.
The song was censored by the BBC in 1987 for live performances on Top of the Pops, including the line “Happy Christmas your arse/Thank God it’s our last”; and again in 1992 when the word “Faggot” had to be converted to “Haggard.”
ITV criticised it in 2005 and BBC Radio 1 changed the words “fag” and “slutty” in 2007 to “avoid insults,” while the more traditionally conservative Radio 2 continued to play the original version. The BBC later reversed this decision following a huge public outcry.
RTÉ, Ireland’s state broadcaster, tweeted in 2018 about her discomfort with the song lyrics and called for the word “fag” to be deleted. Luckily, RTÉ promised to continue playing it “without omissions” on its radio stations.
In 2019 and 2020, the number of complaints prompted BBC Radio 1 to beep “fag” and “slutty,” while BBC Radio 2 once again stood firm and played the entire song without censored words.
Finally, this year, BBC Radio 2 gave in to demands for censorship and an alternative version of MacColl singing “You’re Cheap and You’re Haggard.” This was the version that was included for the official Marvel soundtrack of the special short film The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special 2022.
schon schwindt?
You should be too — and that’s just the shortened version.
In a statement, Radio 2 claimed: “We’re reflecting on what we’re hearing from many of our listeners who love the song but find some of the lyrics in 2022 harrowing.”
hard to believe when you consider that “Fairytale of New York” is the most-played Christmas song in Great Britain and has been in the top 75 every year in December since 2005.
The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan has previously spoken out in favour of using the insulting words in his painfully sad ballad, as the characters in the song are neither “angel” nor “decent.”
“The word was used by the character because it suited her way of speaking and her character. She shouldn’t be a nice person or even a healthy person,” MacGowan said in 2018 about the character who sings these lyrics. “She is a woman of a particular generation at a particular time in history and she has lost her luck and is desperate.”
“Not all characters in songs and stories are angels, or even decent and respectable. Sometimes they have to be evil or evil to tell the story effectively,” he added.
When you consider that the song is essentially about an increasingly drunken couple (played by MacGowan and the late MacColl) fighting, as well as about broken dreams and shattered hopes, it fits.
In addition, many have pointed out that there is clearly no homophobic intent behind the text and that the word “fag” was once used as a colloquial language in Ireland to mean lazy or useless.
An act of “cultural vandalism”
Let’s face the facts — this is getting ridiculous. Does the BBC not have any other turkeys to stuff right now?
Art is meant to break through and provoke barriers, and being insulted when you say words that are taken out of context ultimately changes an art form. Cleaned versions are not only incorrect, but also potentially dangerous.
The BBC continues to show a level of puritanism that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else in Europe — let alone for a Christmas song; it’s a form of patronizing hypersensitivity normally expected from the US (more on that later).
At this point, the British are just making a complete fool of themselves. Especially when you consider that their actions will hopefully backfire and trigger another example of the Streisand effect, which shows that attempts to remove or censor information often have the unintended effect of increasing awareness of that information. Hopefully, more people will listen to and download the original version this Christmas to avoid the childish actions of an organization that really should know better.
And once again, when you consider that “Fairytale of New York” is the most-played Christmas bop of the 21st century in Great Britain and is often described as the best Christmas song of all time in British and Irish surveys, it really boils down to a simple equation for the BBC: either play the original song or don’t play it at all.
Songs can be faulty, but their lyrics must be protected. Changing and maiming her destroys her soul and is nothing less than an act of “cultural vandalism,” as Irish journalist Ella Whelan brilliantly summarized.
And as the always educated and wonderful Nick Cave wrote in his Red Right Hand Files newsletter in 2020, in a way that overshadows anything this article could ever achieve:
“The idea that a word or line in a song can simply be replaced by another without causing significant damage to it is an idea that can only be maintained by those who know nothing about the fragility of songwriting.
Changing the word “fag” with the nonsensical word “emaciated” destroys the song by emptying the air at its most important and reckless moment and depriving it of its value. It becomes a song that has been manipulated, compromised, tamed and castrated and that can no longer be described as a great song. It is a song that has lost its truth, honor and integrity — a song that has kneeled down and enabled the BBC to do its dark and difficult business.
The BBC, this gatekeeper of our brittle sensibility, always acts in our best interest and continues to mutilate an artifact of immense cultural value, taking away something from us at Christmas that can neither be measured nor replaced. It continues and we are even less in favour of it.”
You can — and should — read his beautifully written full statement on Fairytale Of New York here.
The United States versus Christmas
As mentioned above, the BBC has continued to display some bead clips that were normally reserved for the USA, which has a long criminal record when it comes to banning Christmas songs.
Here are just a few examples of artists who have been blacklisted by radio DJs:
Jimmy Boyd
“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” premiered in 1952 by 13-year-old Jimmy Boyd, is a festive number that tells the story of a child who witnesses his mother having an affair with Santa Claus and then realizes that it is his father in disguise. The Boston branch of the Roman Catholic Church wasn’t particularly pleased that the birth of Jesus Christ was associated with the shocking act of kissing. This led to boycotts of radio stations. It wasn’t until Columbia Records explained to the archdiocese that Santa Claus in the song was actually the father in disguise that the ban was lifted in time for the following Christmas.
Elvis Presley
Elvis’s version of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” from 1957 was banned when a judge in Jacksonville accused the singer of “undermining America’s youth.” His harmless cover song and festive album were therefore banned and a DJ in Portland was even fired for playing “White Christmas” on his show.
Frank Lößer
Frank Loesser’s popular 1959 classic “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was considered shocking at the time because the idea of blaming the weather so that one person could spend the night away from marriage was too much of a taboo. In recent years, the song has been banned by several US radio stations (2018) because of its “creepy” lyrics, as the song does not promote approval and lines like “The answer is no” caused frowns.
This was parodied in a brilliant skit by Key & Peele:
So while it’s easy to giggle at others, the BBC’s censorship of “Fairytale of New York” just means that even in 2022 — when in countries that are proud to stand up for free speech — we really should know better to defend artists’ works from any form of censorship remains depressingly important.
So merry Christmas, your ass, I’m praying to God it’s our last.