[Music] Fairytale of New York - PC gone mad or correct decision?

[Bakero]

I haven't read a single post on this thread because I was just having a very quick troll through the thread titles to see if anything caught my eye before shooting off to bed ... and I saw this one, and felt the hairs on the back of my neck start to quiver as my heckles began to raise ....

Now somebody else is bound to have already made this point, so I apologise if they have and I'm just repeating the same old dross .... but FFS ........... it is a song.
It is not a political or social statement or any other type of subliminal protest .... it is a SONG!

If anyone is offended by a SONG then might I suggest they give up listening to music, their life will be all the better for it.

Be truthful people ... does anybody REALLY buy a SONG for the words?

"Oh the tune is absolute dirge, but I love the words so I just had to buy this song".
Garbage ... nobody honestly does that.

They like the tune first and hope that the words might add to the experience, but it's no big deal if they don't, people will buy a good tune anyway.
I'm probably in a minority, but I struggle to understand the lyrics in songs nowadays, it's only about 1 in 50 that I can actually make out what's being said.

For the record, I love the melody and the singing of "Fairytale ....."
It's one of my favourite all time xmas songs, and I have never bothered to register what the words are actually saying or not saying, I don't listen to it for the words ... it's the TUNE that's important!

I'm a fan of words, actually. I don't imagine I'm alone in that.

Personally, I don't give a **** about a bit of "bad" language but I understand why some people would prefer it not to appear on daytime radio.

 

[The Wizard]

I’m as anti PC brigade as they come but it’s not like cutting a couple of derogatory terms out the song is going to make a massive difference to anyone who really loves the song is it, it’s not like for example a certain Eminem song where if they cut out offensive words it’s pretty much just an endless bleep. It’s not really a big deal is it, they could have done this quietly by just cutting it out and nobody would have really cared - seems like virtue signalling righteous rubbish.

 

[zamora the merrier]

I despair - you wonder where pc will end up?

 

[Rinkmaster]

Seems as though it doesn't matter what anyone says some people will take offence to it. The answer is to have a nation that says nothing. That way the minorities have nothing to gripe about.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

As I said in the other thread, this seems like an incredibly sensible decision by the BBC if you actually read what they’re doing.

They’re playing a decent, amended version on Radio 1 that is more appropriate for current times and the youth of today who ultimately are their core audience. Despite being out of their target age range, I fall on this side. I don’t think the lyrics are appropriate or necessary anymore.

But if you’re one of those who needs to listen to the original, you can on Radio 2 and then it’s down to the individual DJ’s choice on Radio 6.

I can’t see any reason at all for a negative response to this. I shouldn’t be surprised but I cannot for the life of me work out why the Daily Mail brigade have got their knickers in such a knot again. Are they/you bored of Marcus Rashford already?!

Yesterday, I made a list (off the top of my head) of things that people have been offended by this week.

They include:

A supermarket advert
Someone leaving a show about baking
How a car company does its social media
The lyrics in a song
A reduction in meat consumption to help climate change.

In essence, none of it REALLY matters to people's everyday lives, but they are way too quick to have their opinion – and a lot of the time they think they're right. Chances are that – regardless of which 'side' you're on – you will have a lot of people agreeing with your opinion, which builds the strength of opinion on each side. It's bonkers really and I don't understand it either.

Basically, I think people (especially in this country) like to complain about something – and the media knows this so is only too happy to put controversial stories out there. Hence why you get stories like this all the time.

People would complain if they didn't have anything to complain about!

 

[MattBackHome]

Seems as though it doesn't matter what anyone says some people will take offence to it. The answer is to have a nation that says nothing. That way the minorities have nothing to gripe about.

Stop griping.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

I am very pro BBC. Nothing to do with defundbbc as you say, I just want to see some bloody common sense shown for once. Play these old tracks for the youngsters so they can make their own choices to listen to them or not without all this bollocks surrounding them if they are offensive or not.

Radio 1: Alternative version of the song played
Radio 2: Original version of the song played
6 Music: DJs have the choice which version they play

How much more choice, from one broadcaster, do you WANT?

Not to mention Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music, YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion, Facebook, Twitter, or the original track on vinyl, cassette or CD

 

[Greg Bobkin]

Question for all of those who disagree with the decision by the BBC: would you teach your child the more traditional version of 'Eeny, meeny, miny, moe' or one that didn't use the n-word?

 

[The Clamp]

I despair - you wonder where pc will end up?

A fair and equal social and professional landscape where people from as many backgrounds as is practicable can navigate their way through daily life without facing prejudice or offensive attitudes, enabling as many people as possible to have a fair chance at bettering themselves and make the most of opportunities that present themselves?

 

[MattBackHome]

Gutted to hear that Radio 1 won't play the first 5 seconds of Plaistow Patricia anymore.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

Some interesting points in the following article I thought - written by Brendan O’Neill

There’s a surefire way to tell Christmas has arrived. Forget the Oxford Street lights. Forget the sudden appearance of stacks of selection boxes in your supermarket. Forget Noddy Holder’s pained cry, ‘It’s Chriiiistmaaas!’

No, these days it isn’t really Christmas until we have the annual handwringing over The Pogues’ song ‘Fairytale of New York’.

And it’s here. It has arrived. As predictably as pine trees in your local garden centre and dads getting boxes of tinsel from the attic, the argument over Shane MacGowan’s ‘offensive’ lyrics is back. Happy Christmas, everyone!

This year, the annual blizzard of snowflakery over MacGowan’s lyrical masterpiece has been started by the BBC. The Beeb has announced that Radio 1 will play a censored version of ‘Fairytale of New York’, while Radio 2 will play the original. The reasoning seems to be that the mostly youthful listeners to Radio 1 will be horrified, possibly even traumatised, if they hear the word ‘fagg*t’, while the older, round-the-block listeners to Radio 2 won’t give a fig.

Every single year the storm over the greatest Christmas song of all time gets more ridiculous. The allegedly offensive verse is of course this one:

“
‘You scumbag, you maggot / You cheap lousy fagg*t/ Happy Christmas your arse / I pray God it’s our last.’
Those words are sung by the late, great Kirsty MacColl. In their stirring duet, MacColl and MacGowan play the parts of Irish immigrants in New York whose dreams have been crushed by folly, drink and drugs. They reminisce, they argue. ‘You’re a bum / You’re a punk / You’re an old slut on junk’, sings MacGowan.

And then they make up. In lines guaranteed to make all drunk blokes of a certain age tear up, MacColl sings ‘You took my dreams from me’, and MacGowan replies: ‘I kept them with me babe / I put them with my own / Can't make it all alone / I've built my dreams around you.’


How dare the suits and pen-pushers at the BBC meddle with such poetry? Who do they think they are? They aren’t fit to lace Shane MacGowan’s boots – far less interfere with his greatest lyrical achievement (and with his back catalogue, that’s saying something).

This year Radio 1 will play a version of the song in which they use the word ‘haggard’ and will bleep out the word ‘slut’. The aim of this Orwellian rewriting of lyrics is to erase the song’s homophobic and gender-based insults.

But the controversial lines aren’t homophobic or misogynistic. These insults aren’t made against gay people or women. Rather, they’re the highly personal, emotional brickbats of a couple whose dreams of the fancy life in New York City — ‘cars big as bars… rivers of gold’ — have been shattered. The idea that MacGowan and MacColl use these words in order to belittle gay people or women is perverse, and an insult to these two great artists. Context matters. In this context, it is the bitter cries of two people looking back on their lives after getting blind drunk on Christmas Eve.

If you take offence at an imaginary, wonderfully woven lyrical argument between two characters created by the master Shane MacGowan, then I’m afraid the problem is you, not ‘Fairytale of New York’.

The song is a story. It has real meaning. There’s a reason it is the UK’s most played Christmas song of the 21st century. It connects with people. It is tragic and hopeful and beautiful. The BBC should stop fretting over how young listeners might feel and instead listen to the wise words of Kirsty MacColl’s mother, Jean. In 2007, when the BBC first flirted with the idea of censoring the song, she said any such move would be ‘pathetic’ and ‘absolute nonsense’.

She said:

“
‘Really this is too ridiculous. Shane has written the most beautiful song and these characters live, they really live, and you have such sympathy for them. These are a couple of characters who are not in the first flush of youth, I wouldn’t have thought. They are what they are, this is the way they speak... It’s like a play and it’s very amusing and sad, and it's a great song.’
Absolutely right. And clipboard-wielders at the BBC have no more right to alter this song than the bosses at the National Gallery have to go around hiding painted penises with fig leaves. Or as MacGowan pithily said of the ‘Fairytale’ controversy last year: ‘**** that. Nobody in the band thinks that’s worth a second thought.’


The BBC’s aim to protect younger listeners from offensive words is the worst justification of all. The young are already too mollycoddled, too safe-spaced. Exposing them to allegedly shocking words, and encouraging them to understand their context is important.

So, hands off ‘Fairytale of New York’. It’s perfect as it is. The BBC did a U-turn in 2007 and ended up playing the original song. They must do the same again this year. Play Shane’s song, you scumbags, you maggots.

 

[The Clamp]

Some interesting points in the following article I thought - written by Brendan O’Neill

There’s a surefire way to tell Christmas has arrived. Forget the Oxford Street lights. Forget the sudden appearance of stacks of selection boxes in your supermarket. Forget Noddy Holder’s pained cry, ‘It’s Chriiiistmaaas!’

No, these days it isn’t really Christmas until we have the annual handwringing over The Pogues’ song ‘Fairytale of New York’.

And it’s here. It has arrived. As predictably as pine trees in your local garden centre and dads getting boxes of tinsel from the attic, the argument over Shane MacGowan’s ‘offensive’ lyrics is back. Happy Christmas, everyone!

This year, the annual blizzard of snowflakery over MacGowan’s lyrical masterpiece has been started by the BBC. The Beeb has announced that Radio 1 will play a censored version of ‘Fairytale of New York’, while Radio 2 will play the original. The reasoning seems to be that the mostly youthful listeners to Radio 1 will be horrified, possibly even traumatised, if they hear the word ‘fagg*t’, while the older, round-the-block listeners to Radio 2 won’t give a fig.

Every single year the storm over the greatest Christmas song of all time gets more ridiculous. The allegedly offensive verse is of course this one:

“
‘You scumbag, you maggot / You cheap lousy fagg*t/ Happy Christmas your arse / I pray God it’s our last.’
Those words are sung by the late, great Kirsty MacColl. In their stirring duet, MacColl and MacGowan play the parts of Irish immigrants in New York whose dreams have been crushed by folly, drink and drugs. They reminisce, they argue. ‘You’re a bum / You’re a punk / You’re an old slut on junk’, sings MacGowan.

And then they make up. In lines guaranteed to make all drunk blokes of a certain age tear up, MacColl sings ‘You took my dreams from me’, and MacGowan replies: ‘I kept them with me babe / I put them with my own / Can't make it all alone / I've built my dreams around you.’


How dare the suits and pen-pushers at the BBC meddle with such poetry? Who do they think they are? They aren’t fit to lace Shane MacGowan’s boots – far less interfere with his greatest lyrical achievement (and with his back catalogue, that’s saying something).

This year Radio 1 will play a version of the song in which they use the word ‘haggard’ and will bleep out the word ‘slut’. The aim of this Orwellian rewriting of lyrics is to erase the song’s homophobic and gender-based insults.

But the controversial lines aren’t homophobic or misogynistic. These insults aren’t made against gay people or women. Rather, they’re the highly personal, emotional brickbats of a couple whose dreams of the fancy life in New York City — ‘cars big as bars… rivers of gold’ — have been shattered. The idea that MacGowan and MacColl use these words in order to belittle gay people or women is perverse, and an insult to these two great artists. Context matters. In this context, it is the bitter cries of two people looking back on their lives after getting blind drunk on Christmas Eve.

If you take offence at an imaginary, wonderfully woven lyrical argument between two characters created by the master Shane MacGowan, then I’m afraid the problem is you, not ‘Fairytale of New York’.

The song is a story. It has real meaning. There’s a reason it is the UK’s most played Christmas song of the 21st century. It connects with people. It is tragic and hopeful and beautiful. The BBC should stop fretting over how young listeners might feel and instead listen to the wise words of Kirsty MacColl’s mother, Jean. In 2007, when the BBC first flirted with the idea of censoring the song, she said any such move would be ‘pathetic’ and ‘absolute nonsense’.

She said:

“
‘Really this is too ridiculous. Shane has written the most beautiful song and these characters live, they really live, and you have such sympathy for them. These are a couple of characters who are not in the first flush of youth, I wouldn’t have thought. They are what they are, this is the way they speak... It’s like a play and it’s very amusing and sad, and it's a great song.’
Absolutely right. And clipboard-wielders at the BBC have no more right to alter this song than the bosses at the National Gallery have to go around hiding painted penises with fig leaves. Or as MacGowan pithily said of the ‘Fairytale’ controversy last year: ‘**** that. Nobody in the band thinks that’s worth a second thought.’


The BBC’s aim to protect younger listeners from offensive words is the worst justification of all. The young are already too mollycoddled, too safe-spaced. Exposing them to allegedly shocking words, and encouraging them to understand their context is important.

So, hands off ‘Fairytale of New York’. It’s perfect as it is. The BBC did a U-turn in 2007 and ended up playing the original song. They must do the same again this year. Play Shane’s song, you scumbags, you maggots.

And yet McGowan himself, the man who penned the lyrics, couldn’t give a feck.

 

[WATFORD zero]

152 posts FFS

The Marketing manager at Radio 1 certainly deserves their Xmas bonus this year

And now I've gone and bounced the thread, made it 153 posts and said the words 'Radio 1' for the first time in over 20 years

 

[schmunk]

CLASSIC FM have announced that they won't play this song AT ALL.

SNOWFLAKES

 

[keaton]

There's also some irony in people complaining about censorship on a website that filters out swears and has The Bear Pit

 

[keaton]

Some interesting points in the following article I thought - written by Brendan O’Neill

There’s a surefire way to tell Christmas has arrived. Forget the Oxford Street lights. Forget the sudden appearance of stacks of selection boxes in your supermarket. Forget Noddy Holder’s pained cry, ‘It’s Chriiiistmaaas!’

No, these days it isn’t really Christmas until we have the annual handwringing over The Pogues’ song ‘Fairytale of New York’.

And it’s here. It has arrived. As predictably as pine trees in your local garden centre and dads getting boxes of tinsel from the attic, the argument over Shane MacGowan’s ‘offensive’ lyrics is back. Happy Christmas, everyone!

This year, the annual blizzard of snowflakery over MacGowan’s lyrical masterpiece has been started by the BBC. The Beeb has announced that Radio 1 will play a censored version of ‘Fairytale of New York’, while Radio 2 will play the original. The reasoning seems to be that the mostly youthful listeners to Radio 1 will be horrified, possibly even traumatised, if they hear the word ‘fagg*t’, while the older, round-the-block listeners to Radio 2 won’t give a fig.

Every single year the storm over the greatest Christmas song of all time gets more ridiculous. The allegedly offensive verse is of course this one:

“
‘You scumbag, you maggot / You cheap lousy fagg*t/ Happy Christmas your arse / I pray God it’s our last.’
Those words are sung by the late, great Kirsty MacColl. In their stirring duet, MacColl and MacGowan play the parts of Irish immigrants in New York whose dreams have been crushed by folly, drink and drugs. They reminisce, they argue. ‘You’re a bum / You’re a punk / You’re an old slut on junk’, sings MacGowan.

And then they make up. In lines guaranteed to make all drunk blokes of a certain age tear up, MacColl sings ‘You took my dreams from me’, and MacGowan replies: ‘I kept them with me babe / I put them with my own / Can't make it all alone / I've built my dreams around you.’


How dare the suits and pen-pushers at the BBC meddle with such poetry? Who do they think they are? They aren’t fit to lace Shane MacGowan’s boots – far less interfere with his greatest lyrical achievement (and with his back catalogue, that’s saying something).

This year Radio 1 will play a version of the song in which they use the word ‘haggard’ and will bleep out the word ‘slut’. The aim of this Orwellian rewriting of lyrics is to erase the song’s homophobic and gender-based insults.

But the controversial lines aren’t homophobic or misogynistic. These insults aren’t made against gay people or women. Rather, they’re the highly personal, emotional brickbats of a couple whose dreams of the fancy life in New York City — ‘cars big as bars… rivers of gold’ — have been shattered. The idea that MacGowan and MacColl use these words in order to belittle gay people or women is perverse, and an insult to these two great artists. Context matters. In this context, it is the bitter cries of two people looking back on their lives after getting blind drunk on Christmas Eve.

If you take offence at an imaginary, wonderfully woven lyrical argument between two characters created by the master Shane MacGowan, then I’m afraid the problem is you, not ‘Fairytale of New York’.

The song is a story. It has real meaning. There’s a reason it is the UK’s most played Christmas song of the 21st century. It connects with people. It is tragic and hopeful and beautiful. The BBC should stop fretting over how young listeners might feel and instead listen to the wise words of Kirsty MacColl’s mother, Jean. In 2007, when the BBC first flirted with the idea of censoring the song, she said any such move would be ‘pathetic’ and ‘absolute nonsense’.

She said:

“
‘Really this is too ridiculous. Shane has written the most beautiful song and these characters live, they really live, and you have such sympathy for them. These are a couple of characters who are not in the first flush of youth, I wouldn’t have thought. They are what they are, this is the way they speak... It’s like a play and it’s very amusing and sad, and it's a great song.’
Absolutely right. And clipboard-wielders at the BBC have no more right to alter this song than the bosses at the National Gallery have to go around hiding painted penises with fig leaves. Or as MacGowan pithily said of the ‘Fairytale’ controversy last year: ‘**** that. Nobody in the band thinks that’s worth a second thought.’


The BBC’s aim to protect younger listeners from offensive words is the worst justification of all. The young are already too mollycoddled, too safe-spaced. Exposing them to allegedly shocking words, and encouraging them to understand their context is important.

So, hands off ‘Fairytale of New York’. It’s perfect as it is. The BBC did a U-turn in 2007 and ended up playing the original song. They must do the same again this year. Play Shane’s song, you scumbags, you maggots.

It's odd how he's against censorship and suppressing art and yet his most recent tweets seen to suggest he doesn't think a children's book dealing with trans issues shouldn't be allowed.

 

[Curious Orange]

There's also some irony in people complaining about censorship on a website that filters out swears and has The Bear Pit

You are live on North Stand Chat, please do not say **** or bugger*.




* oh, how interesting, that one isn't deemed naughty (yet).

 

[chaileyjem]

"How dare the suits and pen-pushers at the BBC meddle with such poetry? Who do they think they are?
This year Radio 1 will play a version of the song in which they use the word ‘haggard’ and will bleep out the word ‘slut’ "

The BBC didn't meddle with it. Kirsty Maccoll recorded a new version of the song in 1992 - a radio edit which many stations have played since then - with those new lyrics and changed it herself in a Top of the Pops performance that year.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

Every single year the storm over the greatest Christmas song of all time gets more ridiculous. The allegedly offensive verse is of course this one:

“
‘You scumbag, you maggot / You cheap lousy fagg*t/ Happy Christmas your arse / I pray God it’s our last.’
.

As a wider point, that guy has SERIOUS issues with the BBC, hasn't he?

 

[LlcoolJ]

I’m as anti PC brigade as they come but it’s not like cutting a couple of derogatory terms out the song is going to make a massive difference to anyone who really loves the song is it, it’s not like for example a certain Eminem song where if they cut out offensive words it’s pretty much just an endless bleep. It’s not really a big deal is it, they could have done this quietly by just cutting it out and nobody would have really cared - seems like virtue signalling righteous rubbish.

Ha ha! You've reminded me of a pub I used to go to years ago where on the Jukebox they had a copy of the recently released Marshall Mathers LP.

The whole thing had been censored, it was hilarious. You can imagine "Kill You', it was basically just a beat....