Nick Cave is the latest to give his opinion on the BBC’s decision to censor The Pogues’ Christmas classic ‘Fairytale of New York’.
‘Tis the season to be upset over song lyrics, ladies and gentleman. As per Consequence of Sound, Cave discussed the issue in the latest edition of his Red Hand Files. He wrote that the BBC had “tampered with, compromised, tamed, and neutered” a track that he (and most others) considers “the greatest Christmas song ever written.”
The iconic duet with Kirsty MacColl sees the late singer and Shane MacGowan hurl insults back and forth, including a homophobic slur.
In 2018, MacGowan defended its inclusion. “The word was used by the character because it fitted with the way she would speak and with her character,” he said. “She is not supposed to be a nice person, or even a wholesome person. She is a woman of a certain generation at a certain time in history and she is down on her luck and desperate.”
The cleaner version of the song uses the word ‘haggard’ and he said that its use “destroys the song,” transforming it into something that has “lost its truth, its honour and integrity.”
“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,” he stated.
Cave ended his post by blasting the corporation. “The BBC,” he wrote, “that gatekeeper of our brittle sensibilities, forever acting in our best interests, continue to mutilate an artefact of immense cultural value and in doing so takes something from us this Christmas, impossible to measure or replace. On and on it goes, and we are all the less for it.”
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Whatever you think of his thoughts on the matter, we respect the opinion of Nick Cave about The Pogues’ song just a tad more than British loser Laurence Fox’s.
Regardless, Cave has been quite clear about his own “problematic lyrics,” writing that “flawed as they may be, the souls of the songs must be protected at all costs.”
Check out the clean version of ‘Fairytale of New York’:
