Fairytale of New York

Now, I realise that I probably come across as more than a little grinch like on this blog -like someone who would hate Christmas. But actually I love it. I love Christmas, I love the build-up, I love the crappy decorations, the plotting of what you are going to buy, the food, the wine, the... erm... the everything. I love Christmas, and the fact that The Runaway Bride is on will make it all the better.

But there is one thing I hate about Christmas. The music. Not the carols - they can be fucking awesome (Hark the Herald Angels Sing is one of the best, most affecting songs ever - no joke) but rather the *Christmas Hits*. The shower of general cuntitude that inhabits the charts at this time of year. Sure - Slade, Wham and Greg Lake all managed to write great Christmas songs, but let's be honest, we are all skipping them on our MP3 players/I-pods come the New Year.

Fairytale of New York is an exception. It is one of the greatest songs ever written - a shining beacon in a miasma of utter shite. The story of two angry lovers, it is about Christmas without being just a Christmas song. It is angry (oh, name the teenager who does not love the lyric "you scumbag you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot) and is a Christmas song by default - simply because the confrontation between the two lovers takes place on Christmas Eve. It could be about Easter, or Whitsunday, but as they say in the opening line "it was Christmas Eve babe". It is Christmassy in spite of itself, rather than hundreds of other Christmas songs that desperately try to be Christmassy but utterly fail.

And that fits in with the general feel of the song - two people thinking about their year and their lives, realising that things aren't great ("Merry Christmas, your arse, I pray God it's our last") but that they are utterly dependant on each other ("I can't make it all alone/I've built my life around you"). Affecting, epic, and emotional, it sure as hell pisses all over other Christmas tunes...