I've spun this particular yarn here before, but I first heard the Pogues during my freshman year of college in 1985, when my long-suffering childood comrade & future best man Keith (also known as Charlie … very long & boring story) was sequestered away in Northern England for a turbulent semester abroad. Out of the blue, Keith sent me a mixtape rife with some of the music of the moment, including several atmospheric tracks by This Mortal Coil (wrongly credited to the Cocteau Twins), a clutch of dissonant songs by the Jesus & Mary Chain (wrongly credited to the band’s debut album title, Psychocandy – details were never Keith’s strong point) and various tunes by punk bands like The Stranglers and Peter & The Test Tube Babies. Practially the whole second side side of the tape, meanwhile, was occupied by early songs by The Pogues, a feral and innovative collective that messily fused traditional Celtic folk music with the adrenalized sprint and pugnacious invective of Punk Rock. Upon a single spin, I dispatched *WITH ALL HASTE* to nearby Threshold Audio on the glorious suburban planes of Newark, Ohio to fetch myself a copy of the band’s debut LP, Red Roses For Me, and have been a fan forever since.
Of course, later efforts by the Pogues found them streamlining their aesthetic for a more accessible sound. Never was that more the case than on what would become a perennial-yet-contested song from their third LP, If I Should Fall From Grace With God called “The Fairytale of New York.”
If I’m being honest, despite it being the motherfucking Pogues and despite it being topically rooted in my hometown, I was never a tremendous fan of the track. Too much treacle and sentimentality for my taste, and not enough of lead singer/songwriter Shane MacGowan’s untethered venom – although the song would go on to court divisive notoriety for its usage of a homophobic slur, which many considered brazenly offensive and others interpreted as simply an accurate employment of just the type of vulgar vernacular the song’s inglorious characters would have used. Thirty-two years after the song’s release, that debate continues.
Some have called for the song to be edited, censored and/or banned, while others have defended lyricist Shane’s utilization of poetic license. Quite unfortunately, the track has gone onto become a de facto anthem for the SantaCon set – resulting in hordes of drunken frat-bros beerily singing along and loudly accentuating the offending noun when that verse – trilled by the tragically late Kirsty MacColl – arrives. No one is well served by this.
As much as I would otherwise staunchly defend the concept of poetic license, as a hetero white male who has never experienced any genuine form of prejudice, intollerance, bigotry or hatred first-hand, I really have no place in blithely determining what is and what isn’t credibly offensive. To asssert that those objecting to the usage of the term in this song are simply “overreacting” is to diminish any strides made in the past several decades towards a more inclusive and tolerant society. Because I’m a spineless Libra, I can understand both side of this argument.
But I’ll tell you one thing for certain. Regardless of how offensive the original 1988 composition may or may not be, one thing its storied songwriters did not deserve was to hear their song irreparably befouled by the insidious likes of Jon Bon Fucking Jovi, who just released a simply indefensible cover of the song.
Hear that below and try not to spit up all over your keyboard.
I have nothing against JBJ. He seems like a nice guy and Bon Jovi were decent as far as 80s hair metal goes. However, this track is horrendous. Did no one in his inner circle stop him from releasing this track? What is the rest of the album like?
Posted by: Lefty | December 10, 2020 at 11:41 AM