Opinion: My kind of holiday song

Scott Simon

November 29, 2025 / 5:00 am

The holiday music season has begun in stores, on radio stations and on the speakers in our living room, and I have come back to a holiday favorite: "Fairytale of New York," by The Pogues. It's not exactly "chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

"It was Christmas Eve babe

In the drunk tank

An old man said to me, won't see another on..."

It's set in a time of black-and-white movies and Sinatra songs, with a man who's an Irish immigrant sleeping off a holiday bender in a New York City jail. On that cold floor, he dreams of the woman who has shared his dreams of life in America:

"They've got cars big as bars

They've got rivers of gold

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But the wind goes right through you

It's no place for the old

Whe

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