The widow of the late Pogues frontman, Shane MacGowan, has said she hopes his song Fairytale of New York will be this year’s Christmas No 1.
The singer died on Thursday with his wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, and family by his side. He was 65.
Fairytale of New York, which also features Kirsty MacColl, has never reached the No 1 spot, peaking at No 2. However, thanks to streaming the song often re-enters the UK singles chart over the festive period and regularly tops polls for the best Christmas song.
In 2007, the BBC censored the song to remove the words “faggot” and “slut”, though it reversed the decision shortly afterwards.
Clarke told Today on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday: “It would be nice, wouldn’t it? It should be the Christmas No 1, it absolutely should. I am very much in favour of that.”
Talking about her life with MacGowan, Clarke said he was a man of contradictions.
Clarke, an Irish writer, first met him when she was 16. She said: “He was the kind of husband that would tell you how beautiful you are every single day. He was always buying flowers. He was just a really, really romantic man.”
She said they both “watched a lot of programmes about royalty”, adding: “But he was an ardent republican. He had a love of England and also of Ireland. Sometimes we would be doing the Telegraph crossword and I would be thinking: Gosh, there are people who would be horrified if they could see you doing the Telegraph crossword!”
MacGowan was plagued by ill health linked to his years of alcohol and substance abuse. He had been discharged from St Vincent’s hospital in Dublin last week.
Clarke said the stormy relationship depicted in the song was like her own with the singer.
“It’s not [the romance] that’s gone wrong – in the song they still love each other – but life has gone wrong. That’s a bit similar to our story. We were both very affected by his addiction but you can still love, even though you are in that situation, and you can be very desperately unhappy as well as love.”
In 2015 MacGowan fell when leaving a Dublin studio and broke his pelvis, which led to him having to use a wheelchair.
One of his last public appearances was in 2018 at a special 60th birthday celebration at the National Concert Hall in Dublin.
The singer would have celebrated his 66th birthday on Christmas Day.
