I remember being at Barrowlands when I proposed to Kirsty MacColl on New Year’s Eve, in 1983. I was in Glasgow recording Scottish rock band Big Country for this BBC Two show, and Kirsty came in to wish me a happy new year. I got down on one knee and proposed to her – I didn’t have a ring because it wasn’t premeditated, but we had a great night! I did get her a nice ring afterwards and we had a good 10 years of marriage, during which time I ended up back at Barrowlands with the Pogues, in 1986.
What happened with this new release was that Warner Brothers were going to release this live version of “Fairytale of New York” as a bonus track, and the band went, hang on… 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-ever live recording, which didn’t sound great. So I said, ‘Send me the tapes, 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 spunky. It’s a great version of the song.
The Pogues were such a brilliant band, and I got them at such a great time. All of the artists I’ve worked with have talent, but there’s something about aligning people at the right time that makes that great record. It’s never just one thing.
To me, “Fairytale of New York” is like a fine wine, it grows on you. You don’t hear anyone cheering the song at first, until Kirsty walks on– she was probably more famous in Scotland than she was anywhere else, with her red hair and the Scottish name, even though she was from Croydon, they loved her there. So I kept all of that cheering in there. She did have stage fright, but boy, she transcended that to [deliver] this vocal, she was absolutely fantastic. The spirit of the song really comes through.
Famously, she and Shane MacGowan never sang together in the studio. That’s the thing about making records, it’s a bit smoke and mirrors, but it should sound effortless. Like those haircuts we all had in the Eighties – they took two or three hours, but you looked like you just got out of bed.
The big idea of “Fairytale” was to do a non-schmaltzy Christmas song. The original demo was done for the previous Christmas, but they decided it wasn’t what they were aiming for. Timeless is what we’re trying to look for in any art form, so when we got around to recording it in July, it wasn’t the focus any more, 10 other songs were just as important. By the time we got to the end of the album, we all wanted to go and have a lie down.
I am a huge believer in Christmas traditions. Having said that, I’m not sure if I could get a tree because my house in Bali is very minimalist. But my son is coming here to spend Christmas with me, and I have a beautiful daughter who’s American, and I visited her there one year for Christmas. My son is a food snob, but a very good cook, so I’m hoping he’ll 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 seeing. Those things are pretty heavy! But it was the most beautiful thing, and we managed to sneak it in, so on Christmas morning, she had it and – this is so Kirsty – she just went, “What the f*** is that?” But after a while, it was great because we found some really cool records to put on there and wrote a little card for each one, and that became the centre of all our parties.
Of course, the main memory is after Kirsty was killed [in a boating accident in Mexico] on 18 December 2000. I went to pick up the children and then flew straight to London – I walked in [to the house], and Kirsty had already put the Christmas tree up (by this time I was in New York with my second wife). And seeing the Christmas tree with the presents, and the jukebox – you could see her writing on the cards – it was just very sad. No one really knew how to deal with it.
But time is a great healer; it’s a cliché, but it’s true. Life carries on, and it’ll carry on after we’re dead, and I’ll have no idea what’s going on. Being a really nosy person, that’s actually the thing I hate about death more than anything. I don’t like the idea of not knowing how Chelsea [FC] are doing.
The live version of ‘Fairytale of New York’ is available now on streaming or to purchase as a vinyl EP
