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I I remember I was in Barrowlands when I proposed Kirsty McCall On New Year’s Eve, 1983. I was recording Scottish rock band Big Country in Glasgow for this show for BBC Two, and Kirsty came to wish me a Happy New Year. I got down on my knees and proposed to her – I didn’t have a ring because it wasn’t pre-planned, but we had a great night! Later I got her a nice ring and we had a good 10 years of marriage, during which I moved back to Barrowlands with the Pogues in 1986.
What happened with this new release was that Warner Bros. was going to release “this live version of the song.”New York fairy tale“As a bonus track, and the band went, Wait… The thing is, there’s really only one definitive version of that song. It’s like “Bohemian Rhapsody.” So the band sent me the first live recording, which didn’t sound very good. So I said, ‘Send me the tape, and I’ll see what I can do.’ I spent a few days working on it and the band loved it – it’s faster, more adventurous. This is a great version of the song.
The Pogues were a great band, and I discovered them at a great time. The artists I’ve worked with have talent, but there’s something about getting people together at the right time that makes great records. It’s never just one thing.
To me, “Fairytale of New York” is like a fine wine, it grows on you. You didn’t hear anyone cheering the song until Kirsty got on – she was probably more famous in Scotland than anywhere else, with her red hair and Scottish name, even though she was from Croydon, they loved her there. So I kept all that enthusiasm there. She had stage fright, but boy, she overcame it [deliver] This singing, it was absolutely fantastic. The emotion of the song really comes through.
Famously, he and Shane McGowan Never sang together in the studio. It’s the thing about making records, it’s a little smoke and mirrors, but it should sound effortless. Like those haircuts we all had in the eighties – it took two or three hours, but you looked like you’d just rolled out of bed.
The big idea of ”Fairytale” was to create a nonfiction Christmas song. The original demo was done for last Christmas, but they decided it wasn’t what they were aiming for. Timeless is what we’re trying to explore in any art form, so when we set out to record it in July, it wasn’t the focus anymore, the 10 other songs were just as important. By the time we got to the end of the album, we all wanted to go and lie down.
I’m a big believer in Christmas traditions. Having said that, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get a tree or not since my home in Bali is very minimalist. But my son is coming here to spend Christmas with me, and I have a beautiful daughter who is American, and I went to visit her there one year for Christmas. My son is a foodie but is a very good cook, so I hope he will cook for us.
I remember one Christmas when I decided to get Kirsty a jukebox – it was like a military operation trying to get it into the room without her noticing. Those things are very heavy! But it was the most beautiful thing, and we managed to sneak it in quietly, so on Christmas morning, she had it and – this is very Kirsty – she just said, “What the fuck is this?” But after a while, it was great because we found some really cool records to put in there and wrote a little card for each one, and that became the center of all our parties.
Of course, the main memory is after Kirsty’s murder [in a boating accident in Mexico] On 18 December 2000. I went to pick up the kids and then flew straight to London – I went in [to the house]And Kirsty had already put up the Christmas tree (by this time I was in New York with my second wife). And to see the Christmas tree and the jukebox with the gifts – you could see him writing on the cards – it was so sad. No one really knew how to deal with it.
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But time is a great healer; It’s a cliché, but it’s true. Life goes on, and it will continue after we die, and I won’t have any idea what’s going on. Being a really nosy person, I actually hate death more than anything. I don’t like the idea of not knowing Chelsea [FC] Are doing.
The live version of ‘Fairytale of New York’ is now available to stream or buy as a vinyl EP