It is with great sadness that I bring forth the news that Jon Bon Jovi has tried his hand at covering The Pogues’ beloved 1987 Christmas classic, ‘Fairytale of New York’.
The cover is part of a three-song Christmas release, that also features a cover of ‘Christmas All Over Again’ by Tom Petty and ‘If I Get Home On Christmas’ by Elvis Presley.
The original version of the song enlists the help of Kirsty MacColl for a Christmas ballad that is equal parts jaunty and heartbreaking. For some reason, Jon Bon Jovi decided to tackle the track alone and in the process has turned into an overly-sentimental ballad that feels clinical and stale.
Bon Jovi notably changed the lyrics so to omit the controversial f-slur featured in the original. The tracks original lyrics have been a point of contention over the past few months.
In November, The BBC announced that the song would be played in its original form on Radio 2 whilst BBC Radio 1 would air an edited version in which MacColl sings you’re cheap and you’re haggard” in place of the homophobic slur.
Nick Cave took to his Red Hand Files blog to condemn the decision to censor the track. Whilst acknowledging that he had no stake in determining how offensive the slur is, he argued that it’s better to ban the song completely than to “mutilate” it.
“It may be deeply offensive, I don’t know,” he wrote. “In which case Radio 1 should have made the decision to simply ban the song, and allow it to retain its outlaw spirit and its dignity.”
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“The changing of the word ‘f****t’ for the nonsense word ‘haggard’ destroys the song by deflating it right at its essential and most reckless moment, stripping it of its value,” he added.
Cave went as far to say that the lyric change that ‘Fairytale of New York’ rendered it no longer a “great song,” musing that “a song that has been tampered with, compromised, tamed, and neutered and can no longer be called a great song,”
“It is a song that has lost its truth, its honour and integrity – a song that has knelt down and allowed the BBC to do its grim and sticky business.”
If you want to ruin your day, check out A Jon Bon Jovi Christmas:
