When all our dreams come true

If anyone could have been said to burn his candle at both ends, it would be Shane MacGowan. He started drinking alcohol at age five and spent large chunks of his life in rehab and psychiatric hospitals as a result of his drug use. So it seems kind of a gift that he lived as long as he did—he’d have turned 66 on Christmas Day, but died from complications of pneumonia on 30 November.

Born in Kent, England, to Irish parents, MacGowan was a songwriter, singer, musician and poet. His extraordinary talent pretty much made the success of The Pogues, where he fused punk with Celtic folk music. His songs spoke to the Irish experience with both love and fury, and they resonated with the Irish at home and in diaspora.

As the news broke last month of his death, people all over Dublin, in pubs and on the streets, sang what may be his most iconic song, “Fairytale of New York.” (It’s set in a New York City drunk tank on Christmas Eve. Very seasonal. But you'll also see the weaving of Irish themes into the melody.) They sang it again as his horse-drawn hearse began the final journey from Dublin to his funeral in Tipperary on Friday. And they sang it again at the funeral, as members of his family danced.

I’m giving you two versions of it—the first from A Very Murray Christmas.

The schtick is that on Christmas Eve, Murray’s in his hotel in Manhattan, waiting to broadcast a live show (hello? Scrooged?), which he needs to do for the money. But a blizzard of Biblical proportions strikes, screwing everything up. He can’t cancel, but…well, a whole lot happens (including a power failure) and he, his crew, a wedding party, and miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam end up in the hotel bar, doing what you might expect in a Manhattan bar during a blizzard on Christmas Eve.

There’s drinking, crying, fighting and singing. All the usual elements of holiday festivities.

There’s something about this ensemble’s cover of “Fairytale” that I just love. Pro tip: watch it to the very Murray end.

But I’m also giving you this performance from MacGowan’s funeral—Glen Hansard and Lisa O’Neill leading, as MacGowan’s family dance.

Note: the Very Murray Christmas version cuts a couple of verses whose lyrics are pretty rough. But that's the way MacGowan wrote—rough and true.