Ronan Keating & Maire Brennan – Fairytale Of New York
Ronan Keating has a problem. It’s not him – it’s you. Or at least, his audience demographic.
Eking a living from pensionable old ladies has been easy enough – his CDs are just another of life’s little OAP luxuries, along with boiled sweets, slippers, and commemorative plates with pictures of boiled sweets and slippers on them.
But these grannies are a cash-flow disaster waiting to happen: soon, Ronan’s Horlicks-smooth vocals will lick their ears for the final time through the muffling walls of a coffin.
Ronan, by accident or by design, is the full-time in-house entertainer of God’s Waiting Room. Some men achieve greatness, others have it thrust upon them. This particular man needs a bit of edge, and fast. Something to attract the kids, something with spirit.
Shane McGowan knows all about spirit, in every sense of the word. But he’s the stumpy-toothed and boozy yin to Ronan’s squeaky clean yang. Ronan needs a compromise. And where better to find such perfect balance than in The Pogues’ Fairytale Of New York, the premier Christmas song of the last 25 years?
This song houses another example of Cover Version Hate Crime #1 – changing lyrics to suit the coverer’s purpose. So here, the tail end of “you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot” becomes “you’re cheap and you’re haggard,” which is not so much a cop-out as it is an ‘Entire-Garda-Police-Force-Of-Ireland-Out.”
Agonisingly torn between monstrous offence and devil-may-care cool, Ronan boldly compromises by ditching the homophobia and manages retaining the misogynistic knock-about charm, chirpily labelling co-conspirator Maire Brennan “an old slut on junk.”
That Ronan and co. changed the lyrics most offensive to his blue-rinsed audience is not his only crime. With an impressive disregard for a song celebrated for its perfectly pitched tilt from disaster to beauty and back again, he ruthlessly reduces it to easily digestible mush.
This awkward plateful of love, hate and drunken kinship is carelessly scraped into the Kenwood kitchen blender of MOR Hell. Five awful minutes later, out dribbles the remnants, softer than a full colostomy bag, as eerily warm and just as unpallatable.
As the song gets going in earnest – or as near to ‘earnest’ as you can get whilst retaining the slow pace designed not to cause heart attacks in the nursing home ballroom – the verbal jousting really begins, and it is here that the song exposes its tender, emotional core.
Maire Queen Of Slops enunciates each crystal-cut vowel with agonising precision, Ronan grunts his anger with the gruff menace of a Labradoodle, and we all gaze longingly at the drinks cabinet, wondering if its possible to drink enough eggnog to slip into the sweet release of coma until New Year’s Day.
No-one has missed the mark so wildly since Evel Kneivel tried to jump the Grand Canyon. And after recording this wan bland-stravaganza, strapping Ronan into a Sky-Cycle and firing him suicidally off a cliff would seem to be a wholeheartedly reasonable response.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
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why are you even mentioning this it was a b side of a single back in 2000,and a very good version to,it was on Now Christmas Album so good that not all share you rather negative opinion,and it was praised by Shane McGowan,so again why are you bothering or don’t you have any friends and really want to go out and have fun this time of year.
Brilliant, Mr Sparrow! No pairing has even come close to matching the wonderful original rendition. Perhaps only a collaboration between Tom Waits and Caitlin Rose would ever come close. Keating’s is by far the worst version released so far and the only thing MacGowan liked about it was the money. In appreciation of your fine post, I’ve even put full stops at the end of each sentence to make it easier to read. Happy Christmas me arse
Aw, Pat, thank you kindly for the full stops. I was exhausted after reading constant’s post. And nice idea re: a Tom Waits/Caitlin Rose cover – I’d genuinely like to hear that.
And I’m sure that Shane did enjoy Ronan’s version – but then I don’t wholly trust the judgement of a man who selects pints of Malibu as his drink of choice.
Actually changing the words was the only positive thing I could find about this cover. I cringe everytime I hear them sing cheap lousy faggot. Maybe overtly politically correct to some, but as an avid supporter of gay rights I can’t help it.
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