Hozier performed “Fairytale of New York” on Saturday Night Live over the weekend, about a year after Shane passed away.



by -doughboy

26 comments

  1. Did you know poor auld Kirsty McCaul was killed by a speedboat.

  2. If you don’t want to sing the original lyrics, because they offend you; then don’t sing the song. Sing something else.

    It’s an insult to Shane McGowan not a tribute.

    edit: Christ! the downvotes – So be it, people differ

    The song is a *poem* as much as anything, changing the words because they might cause offence goes against the whole point and the gritty reality of the characters in the song. These are the characters Shane created and the harsh real language is part of that ffs!

  3. Any yanks out there that could tell me if this song is big or even known in the US ?

  4. “The uploader has not made this video available in your country”

    wha

  5. I do appreciate how it takes three awesome singers to equal the emotional power of one Kirsty McCaul.

  9. He’s a grew T man for pulling the ould faces at the same time, is Hozier. Wouldn’t call him a great singer, but the faces….

  10. I have never heard a cover of this song that sounded authentic or sincere. Hozier’s “nice” voice just doesn’t match the lyrical content. As talented as he is – I like to believe a singer when he is singing, even if he’s role-playing.

    And having 3 female singers perform in what is undeniably a duet was a ridiculous decision.

    Shane, Kirsty and this song really were the perfect storm.

  13. SNL is the least edgy tv show and Hozier is the least edgy singer. Not a good fit for this song

  14. I’m not very familiar with Hozier. Did he Ham up his Oirish accent a bit for this performance?

  15. For everyone complaining, it could have been bon Jovi doing it, so be thankful for small mercies

  16. The sanitized version eh.

    We have to worry when some decide to change the bits they don’t like about artists’ work.

    It’s a slippery slope.

  18. Generally, I love Hozier, but this has to be one of the worst versions of the song I’ve heard, his voice does not suit the song at all.

  19. I watched this live and was blown away by it. Both his songs on the episode were great. I don’t get all the criticism. Please post a better version for comparison.

  20. I demand a cheap lousy faggot, none of this haggard stuff. Can’t get hard without it

  21. We will always remember White Christmas as Bing Crosby’s, All I want for Christmas is Mariah Carey’s, Last Christmas is Wham’s and Fairytale of NY is Shane’s and Kirsty’s, etc, etc, etc. But it’s also ok to have different versions of Christmas songs by other artists. I like this version by Hozier. He is not trying to imitate Shane, it is his own version.

  22. This is one of the worst versions of this song I have ever heard, its to clean no roughness about it at all.

  23. Hozier is a phenomenal singer, particularly live, but I have to agree with those saying there’s a bit of cognitive dissonance here. Not really a good fit.

    As far as I’m concerned the only cover ever needed of “Fairytale” was a year ago at Shane’s funeral.
    It’s raw, it’s joyous, it’s emotional and it’s “imperfect” in all the right ways.

    [Fairytale of New York – Shane MacGowan’s funeral](https://youtu.be/6s8lvnSmISc?si=VbJbnPe3IKJ5UkCf)

  24. Tall poppy syndrome, he’s Irish so we hate, I’ll join in, out of tune, fiddle shite, should of used real words, what a tall streak of p””s!

  25. Biggest Irish artist alive pays tribute to Shane McGowan on biggest US tv show and we all pick faults. Yeah he hasn’t drank whiskey for 29yrs and has teeth, not going to sound the same!!

  26. Pardon my saying so, but everyone who’s upset at the changed lyrics are missing a point that’s even simpler than the nature of the word. Simply said, the show was made for an American broadcast, and American broadcasters *cannot* use that word on the air for regular broadcast television. Ever since the Pacifica decision, anything said over publicly-accessible airwaves in the US must pass three criteria ([Source: US FCC](https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/obscene-indecent-and-profane-broadcasts))

    – Obscene content does not have protection by the First Amendment. For content to be ruled obscene, it must meet a three-pronged test established by the Supreme Court: It must appeal to an average person’s prurient interest; depict or describe sexual conduct in a “patently offensive” way; and, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, **artistic** [*emphasis mine*], political or scientific value.

    – Indecent content portrays sexual or excretory organs or activities in a way that is patently offensive but does not meet the three-prong test for obscenity.

    – Profane content includes “grossly offensive” language that is considered a public nuisance.

    It’s the **artistic** portion of the second part that explains why some songs *do* skate by the commission on some radio stations here (Steve Miller Band’s *Jet Airliner*’s line “Don’t want to get caught up in any of that funky shit goin’ down in the city” may or may not be censored, depending on the station you’re listening to or even the time of day is an easy example I’ve personally experienced.)

    For a television show being recorded, though, and sure to be aired again, there was no chance in hell they were going to allow the original lyric through. It’s going to fail on any one of those testing points. Add in that there’s an established history of the original artists themselves changing it, and those same artists’ public support for statements like Harrison Brocklehurst’s: “This is all I’m gonna say on it for the whole year: the word itself being in ‘Fairytale of New York’ doesn’t bother or offend me, but straight people being so angry and outraged at its removal and fighting and arguing for the right to sing it bothers me deeply,” and the lyric was never was never going to pass US censors.

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