Fairytale of New York

Shane MacGowan claimed it started with a bet: producer Elvis Costello wagered the Pogues could not write a Christmas hit. Their manager remembered it as his own idea. Either way, in 1985 banjo player Jem Finer came up with a melody about a homesick Irish sailor in New York, and his wife Marcia suggested turning it into a conversation between a couple at Christmas. MacGowan wrote most of the words while recovering from double pneumonia in a bed in Malmö, and took the title from a J. P. Donleavy novel Finer had left lying around the studio. Then it stalled for two years. Early recordings with bassist Cait O'Riordan singing the female part never felt finished, and she left the band in 1986. A first US tour, opening in New York, and repeated viewings of Once Upon a Time in America fed new lyrics and a Morricone-inspired piano intro. Finally, in August 1987, producer Steve Lillywhite took the track home and had his wife, Kirsty MacColl, record a guide vocal. The band were impressed and realised she was the ideal voice. She and MacGowan never actually sang it together in the studio; he recorded his part against her tape. Released in November 1987, it was kept off the UK Christmas number one by the Pet Shop Boys and has never reached the top. It has not needed to. It has returned to the UK top 20 every Christmas since 2005 and is the most played Christmas song of the century in Britain. MacGowan later called it the Pogues' Bohemian Rhapsody.