Fairytale of New York undergoing rewrites and aborted attempts at recording, and losing its original female vocalist along the way, before finally being completed in August 1987. Although the single never reached the coveted UK Christmas number one, being kept at number two on its original release in 1987 by the Pet Shop Boys' cover version of "Always on My Mind", it has proved enduringly popular with both music critics and the public: to date the song has reached the UK Top 20 on fifteen separate occasions since its original release in 1987, including every year since 2005, and was certified double platinum in
Fairytale of New York Maker" in its 1985 Christmas issue: MacGowan had decided to name the song after J. P. Donleavy's 1973 novel "A Fairy Tale of New York", which Finer was reading at the time and had left lying around the recording studio. In the same "Melody Maker" interview MacGowan expressed regret that the song had not been completed in time to be released for Christmas that year, and hinted that the track would appear on an EP that the Pogues were due to record shortly. In January 1986 the group recorded the song during the sessions with Costello that would produce the