The annual Gibbsmo Xmess Craptacular wouldn’t be complete without the classic “Fairytale Of New York” as delivered by our husband & wife team of Tom & Deidre singing Shane MacGowan’s holiday classic, recently voted the all time fave Christmas song in the UK.
Tom dedicates this version to his friend, the late great Bay Area rock musician Roy Loney, who passed away, just a week prior to this concert.
The UK Guardian has compiled several perspectives including Pogue’s lyricist Shane MacGowan, and multi instrumentalist band member and musical composer James Fearnley’s accounts as to how the song came arduously together and was piecemeal edited through trial and error into an eventual musical masterpiece, well over the course of a year or two, at this link here
My band got to open for the Pogues at The Fillmore in December 1987 when the ramshackle folk/punk troubadours released this storied tune, and have been amazed to watch from the sidelines, as it slowly grew in acclaim, and into far wider public acceptance. It is hard to imagine that it would eventually beat out established family friendly platinum offerings associated with Irving Berlin, Gene Autry & even Paul McCartney. Ironically, the year that The Pogues released their brilliant LP “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” and it’s Christmas single “Fairytale Of New York“, the Pet Shop Boys actually topped the December single charts in the UK, with their sappy 70’s disco cover of Elvis Presley tested MOR fave “You Were Always On My Mind“.
Video shot by @LilMikeSF via 4 cameras at the Make Out Room in San Francisco with some bonus mid song audience angle footage added from Gary Hobish’s iPhone footage borrowed from a Craptacular synopsis post to his Facebook page …all the more the merrier Xmas y’all!