Fairytale of New York Christmas number one by the Pet Shop Boys' cover of "Always on My Mind". MacGowan was reported to have said "We were beaten by two queens and a drum machine". MacColl later said that she did not feel they were really in competition with the Pet Shop Boys as they were doing a completely different kind of music. The song was re-released by the Pogues in the UK in 1991 (reaching #36), and again in the UK and Ireland for Christmas 2005, reaching number three in the UK. All proceeds from the latter release were donated towards a mixture of
Fairytale of New York "Fairytale of New York". Another inspiration was Sergio Leone's film "Once Upon a Time in America", which MacGowan and whistle player Spider Stacy would watch over and over again in the tour bus. Apart from shaping the ideas for the lyrics, MacGowan wrote a slow, piano-based introduction to "Fairytale of New York" influenced by the film's score by Ennio Morricone: the intro would later be edited together with the more upbeat original melody to create the final song. As 1986 went on, however, the Pogues encountered various problems that brought a halt to their recording activity. Their record label Stiff