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
They Don't Know (Kirsty MacColl song) her pom-pom scuff slippers along with a resigned bravado." They Don't Know (Kirsty MacColl song) "They Don't Know" is a song composed and first recorded in 1979 by Kirsty MacColl, which became a Top Ten hit via a 1983 recording by Tracey Ullman. Recorded in Stiff Records mobile studio the China Shop in the spring of 1979, Kirsty MacColl's original recording of "They Don't Know" "emphasized layered harmonies in which MacColl turns her own voice into a chorus of over-dubbed parts" - an evocation of a long-standing admiration for the Beach Boys engendered at age 7 by hearing her brother's