You're a bum, you're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap, lousy faggot
Happy christmas your arse
I pray god it's our last.
If you are subjected to a fair dose of radio during the December months, you are bound to build up a solid hatred for nearly every canonical Christmas classic. Smoothened voices sing smoothened words, and you are supposed to believe that the paper-thin veneer of tradition can overcome, just for that small pocket of time, those few days, all your sorrows and troubles.
But even a more honest song, like The Pogues' Fairytale of New York, becomes an endangered animal, on the brink of annoyance, on the brink of kitsch. Admittedly, Shane MacGowan is toying with the idea of kitsch here, time and again. He comes up with lines like "I've got a feeling this year's for me and you," that feel comfortably at home in the Yuletide repertoire (even if, to me, it does not sound like he really means it, he is merely trying to convince himself).
It amuses me to think of families with rosy-eyed, freshly-showered little kids sitting around the hearth, trying to match Shane's shambolic Irish accent and Kirsty's in-your-face performance (perhaps solemnly turning the volume down when the uncouth verse quoted above comes up). It amuses me that every December, when the song is played to death all around the world, Shane MacGowan will be handed the money to sustain his non-stop drinking and smoking habits.
It is a feelgood song, all in all, but Shane does give you a rough and bumpy road towards that Christmas spirit. "I could have been someone," Shane offers, sounding unsure of himself, more a question than a declaration. Kirsty counters: "Well, so could anyone."
Unlike most Christmas songs, this one does not play itself out next to the Christmas tree, shacked up together in warm, unfashionable sweaters, with the aroma of good food around, and happy faces in abundance. It starts out in the drunk tank, with a moping old man, in a desperate bid for a little attention, a little love, stating - like every year, no doubt - that this will probably be his last torturous December. Next thing we know, Shane bets on a horse with long odds and wins what for him must be a small fortune, after which he no doubt turned right around to go on a binge.
They dance and kiss their way through the night. Outside. Perhaps, they too have dreams, tucked somewhere far away, of the Christmas as we always try to picture it, where they are warm and inside and everything is finally okay, but they will never admit it. But either way they have dreams, dreams that, as they start to realize, they need to put together, in order for them to be realized.
All of the above, only really to try to help you understand the beauty of that line at the end, that line that could easily be kitsch when placed in a different song. Here, it is heartwarming, the sincerest of gestures when you most need one:
“I've built my dreams around you.”
