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Opinion: The annual debate on authenticity and censorship is now as predictable as the arguments at the family dinner table on Christmas Day
It’s that time of year when many people unpack boxes from cupboards or attics as they prepare to decorate their homes for Christmas. And as regularly as this particular holiday season unfolds, so does the debate over that Christmas song.
The furore started a little earlier than usual this year when the BBC announced in November that it would remove the offensive f-word from the seasonal favorite, ‘Fairytale of New York.’ A debate as predictable as family discussions at the Christmas day table followed. Those against any form of censorship again faced opponents who pointed to the common practice of replacing or uttering offensive words on the radio or during broadcast. Others just yawned, bored with this recurring exchange and with a song they don’t like or find relevant. So what’s at stake for those who care, and why should it matter, again? This only a song, after all?
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Pogues’s “New York Fairy Tale”
For the uninitiated, ‘Fairytale of New York’ recounts an exchange between a drunken man in jail, who keeps waiting for his luck to change as he engages in an exchange of pleas with his exasperated and desperate partner. Meanwhile, ‘The Boys of the NYPD Choir’ sing ‘Galway Bay’ in the snow as church bells ring for ‘Christmas Day’. The attached video is shot in black and white and has a distinctly Northern Hemisphere Anglo-American Christmas feel.
Written by the inimitable Shane MacGowan, played by The Pogues and released in 1987, it is experienced by many as the final Irish diasporic song of the season. Others simply love him for his pathos, soaring melody, poetic lyricism, and affective dimensions.
The offensive ‘f word’ is nested in the fifth verse: the female lead unleashes a tirade of abuse against her drunken partner, calling him ‘scumbag’, ‘worm’ and ‘cheap, lousy f *** **. Some singers have chosen to replace the word in later versions, including Ronan Keating and Moya Brennan (2000), who modified the phrase ‘you are cheap and you are haggard’, and Keating received more criticism for the version than for the changed words. .
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From the RTÉ Radio 1 arena, Peter Murphy on The Pogues Christmas classic
Vehement critics see this as giving in to the ‘bleeding hearts’, the ‘snowflakes’, the ‘awakened brigades / PC’. Others make philosophical, even aesthetic, arguments more ostensibly measured: if we begin to manipulate the urtext, Where does it stop and who becomes the arbiter not only of taste, but also of grievance?
Speeches about the importance of creative license and the need for problematic texts to remain unchanged, like historical documents that capture a moment, warts and all, are seductive. So is the idea that offensive dialogue accurately represents real-life exchanges. We don’t go around getting offensive words like the ‘n-word’ from classic books like Kill a Mockingbird The argument goes, so if we start to whitewash art in this way, we compromise the author’s voice and the original creative act.
All this seems reasonable, then, as an aesthetic enigma, and there is an aesthetic counterargument. How could a refreshed lyrics or transient beep take away the exquisite pathos and humanity of this song? That’s putting too much weight on a single word, no matter how loaded, to carry the whole meaning of the work, right? The Pogues and MacGowans have essentially agreed to this point, and more called those that they could advocate retention of words without having any platform to do so, in effect celebrating their own censorship.
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From RTÉ 2fm’s Dave Fanning Show, Dr. Aileen Dillane and journalist and broadcaster Conor Behan talk about ‘Fairytale of New York’
The f word may have originally meant a bundle of sticks or a collection of the poorest offal cuts London could offer (an evocative image of the drunkard sung by an emaciated MacGowan), but that’s not what the word means to most. . people. Let’s be honest, it was a homophobic insult when it appeared in the extraordinary dialogue between these two long-suffering characters who seek to lash out even as they love. It is meant to cut and cut what it does. And the truth is that there are those for whom the ‘f word’ traumatizes and retraumatizes every time it is encountered. It is a deeply divisive hate word.
The middle of the song becomes important. While we can choose not to buy a book or attend a movie, it is not possible to control public spaces, such as when music comes out of a sound system in a shop or cafe. And especially when violently articulated with a harsh and scathing F, the word evokes unbridled homophobia, intimidation, isolation, despair, and issues of self-worth. These are very real reactions from real people, shouldn’t we listen to them?
The songs and the music and the erudition of the songs teach us that the songs are not static or fixed in time, even if a sound recording has compromised an interpretation of an original perceived moment and therefore “authentic” in time. In truth, songs have a scenic life: society changes, people change, individual and community recreation takes place and new versions emerge. That is the nature of music and tradition.
Let’s be honest, it was a homophobic insult when it appeared in the dialogue between these two characters who were looking to lash out even while loving.
So if ‘Fairytale of New York’ is part of your holiday tradition, maybe leave room for one or two fewer words? Try replacing them with something more inclusive. And maybe while you’re at it, add something new and different to the dinner table, including dishes from your family, neighbors, and friends who aren’t Christian or celebrate Christmas.
And if you’re hearing or boldly singing the f word at the top of your lungs from ‘Fairytale’; It is something that you simply cannot do without, on a somatic or aesthetic and intellectual level, you may reconsider why it could be so. “If people don’t understand that I was trying to accurately portray the character in the most authentic way possible,” McGowan said in a 2018 statement, “then I’m absolutely fine with them saying the word, but I don’t want to get into an argument.” . If you can finally let it go, surely we all can?
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the opinions of RTÉ
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