12/01/2024
The death of singer Shane McGowan of the Irish rock group the Pogues led to eulogies being paid in the popular media, and even in the conservative papers, who seemed to forget that McGowan's career had started with performing songs supporting the Provisional IRA and other nationalist paramilitary factions, whose bombing campaigns during the seventies and eighties killed many Irish and British people and were characterised by brutal justice, extra-judicial murders and organised crime operations. Leaving this aside, many LGBT+ people are deeply skeptical of the group's 1987 Christmas record Fairytale of New York, which is used by many hateful heterosexuals as an excuse to scream the lyric "faggot" at people. Indeed, it was noted by some gay newswires that many straights don't even know what the rest of the song's lyrics are, or what they are about - it's just an excuse to scream abuse and attack gay people. The Pogues themselves, have expressed dissatisfaction with the line in question, noting that it was lazy songwriting and should have been done differently. Their co-performer, the late Kirsty McColl, felt the same, and as early as 1992 used performances on BBC and RTE Television to rephrase the lyrics in question. The Pogues in recent years have said that they are troubled at so many straight people's fixation on the word "faggot" and their defence of it. They said "“The word itself being in ‘Fairytale of New York’ doesn’t bother or offend (us), but straight people being so angry and outraged at its removal and fighting and arguing for the right to sing it bothers (us) deeply.” In other words, heterosexuals, it aint your song, and you have no right to use it to attack LGBT people.
