The Story of Fairytale of New York BBC4

BigBearKris

Anyone watching this? 

Quite interesting story, even though I don't like the song itself. I guess I will think of it a little differently now.

duotone

Will try and get this on The iplayer. Cheers!

Dominic

I love the song ..........it flies in the face of Christmas kitsch and postcard fantasy snow scenes from Dickensian Christmas bullshit.
It is the perfect antithesis to Tesco high- budget TV adverts of fantasy extended mixed race harmonious families with well fed pets, big houses, helpful kids ,huge Xmas trees and an unlimited lunch budget.
It's gritty, irreverent and left -field.I also think it's a great tune and the Irish Caelid Di-dickie-dum-dum section of the chorus works so well .

rsvmark

Not on Iplayer! Crap. Would have watched that

Sassafras

It's a brilliant song. Listen to the lyrics, worthy of Bob Dylan.

BigBearKris

rsvmark said:

Not on Iplayer! Crap. Would have watched that

There you go mate:

Rocker

Dominic said:

I love the song ..........it flies in the face of Christmas kitsch and postcard fantasy snow scenes from Dickensian Christmas bullshit.
It is the perfect antithesis to Tesco high- budget TV adverts of fantasy extended mixed race harmonious families with well fed pets, big houses, helpful kids ,huge Xmas trees and an unlimited lunch budget.
It's gritty, irreverent and left -field.I also think it's a great tune and the Irish Caelid Di-dickie-dum-dum section of the chorus works so well .

I agree with your comments on the song @Dominic but everyone needs a little fantasy, a little light hearted fun - what celebrating Christmas is all about.  Otherwise we would be living in the world of 1984 as written by George Orwell.

I never saw the Tesco advert but if it is anything like the Lidl one......

Clarky

BigBearKris said:

rsvmark said:

Not on Iplayer! Crap. Would have watched that

There you go mate:

thanks for posting this...

I'm sat in my studio right now supposed to be recording.. and watched this instead.. 

absolutely brilliant.. thoroughly enjoyed it..

and now... it's time to get back to work.. lol..

Grunfeld

I had no intention of watching all of that... glad I did. 

BigBearKris

Grunfeld said:

I had no intention of watching all of that... glad I did. 

Same here... I was flicking through the channels and accidentally stopped on that one. Glad I did as it was very interesting watch. I do like the song a bit better now too ;-)

ICBM

The best Christmas song ever, whether you like it or not. (And I understand some have grown tired of it now, or never liked it in the first place - but it still is .)

The thing I think is funny is that there actually is no "NYPD choir" - hence why there's a pipe band in the video instead, because that's what the NYPD do have.

RIP Kirsty .

Octafish

Dominic said:

I love the song ..........it flies in the face of Christmas kitsch and postcard fantasy snow scenes from Dickensian Christmas bullshit.
It is the perfect antithesis to Tesco high- budget TV adverts of fantasy extended mixed race harmonious families with well fed pets, big houses, helpful kids ,huge Xmas trees and an unlimited lunch budget.
It's gritty, irreverent and left -field.I also think it's a great tune and the Irish Caelid Di-dickie-dum-dum section of the chorus works so well .

That's all great, but most people don't seem to recognise that and view it as part of the Christmas kitsch and postcard fantasy. Same with Greg Lake's 'I Believe in Father Christmas', which was supposedly an attack on the commercialisation of Christmas and yet is used for exactly that purpose every year  

VimFuego

good stuff, thanks for sharing. And agree on Kirsty, coincidently a lot of stuff has been coming up on my youtube feed recently she had one hell of a voice on her, so unique. 

breakstuff

VimFuego said:

good stuff, thanks for sharing. And agree on Kirsty, coincidently a lot of stuff has been coming up on my youtube feed recently she had one hell of a voice on her, so unique. 

Heard her cover of A New England for the first time in ages the other day.Forgotten what a great song that was.

ICBM

breakstuff said:

Heard her cover of A New England for the first time in ages the other day.Forgotten what a great song that was.

Her version is much better than Billy Bragg's original - almost as if he wrote it for her, since the lyrics work better sung from the girl's point of view, but as far as I know it wasn't intended to be.

chillidoggy

Kirsty was hot. 

breakstuff

ICBM said:

breakstuff said:

Heard her cover of A New England for the first time in ages the other day.Forgotten what a great song that was.

Her version is much better than Billy Bragg's original - almost as if he wrote it for her, since the lyrics work better sung from the girl's point of view, but as far as I know it wasn't intended to be.

Just read this in Wikipedia @ICBM ;

Apparently Bragg wrote an extra couple if verses especially for her.

'Bragg's original version of the song had only two verses. MacColl thought the song was too short, and so Bragg wrote a further two verses for her, which she consolidated into one. Since MacColl's death, Bragg has included the additional verse in performances of the song as a tribute.'

I was also struck by how great the guitar track is.I was looking on Wikipedia to see if it said who played on it,but nothing there.

rsvmark

Thanks @bigbearkris

we played this at a couple of gigs a week ago. The punters bloody loved it and we really got stuck in. Great stuff

ICBM

breakstuff said:

Apparently Bragg wrote an extra couple if verses especially for her.

'Bragg's original version of the song had only two verses. MacColl thought the song was too short, and so Bragg wrote a further two verses for her, which she consolidated into one. Since MacColl's death, Bragg has included the additional verse in performances of the song as a tribute.'

Ah! Interesting. I knew he hadn't originally written it for her, since I heard his version a year or so earlier - I actually heard it late one night on John Peel's show, liked the song but missed hearing who it was, and didn't know who it (or he) was until I heard her version.

breakstuff said:

I was also struck by how great the guitar track is.I was looking on Wikipedia to see if it said who played on it,but nothing there.

Johnny Marr.

breakstuff

Thanks for that @ICBM ;

Funnily enough Johnny Marr was actually who I was expecting it to be.Thanks for confirming.

mellowsun

breakstuff said:

Thanks for that @ICBM ;

Funnily enough Johnny Marr was actually who I was expecting it to be.Thanks for confirming.

Johnny Marr did some great work with Kirsty MacColl and Billy Bragg. His playing on the Talking to the Taxman about Poetry album is some of his best ever.