You Brits are being serious this time, aren’t you? I laughed like a loon when I read about the BBC attempted ban on “faggot” as it appears in “Fairytale of New York.” Has any word uttered by the dearly departed Kirsty MacColl ever offended with that angel voice of hers? Let’s see. From my post-PC perch in the states — where happy-headed no’s can’t stop a glib tongue or an ethnic provocation — there’s a documentary on telly now called “Kike Like Me.” It’s about a curly-headed bloke who may or may not be Jewish but wants to know why everyone from French Muslims to Pat Buchanan has got a problem with the possibility that he is. “Kike Like Me,” it’s called.

A few years ago, “faggot” made our national music headlines as well when Eminem used it in his rap lyrics. Nothing was illuminated in that sorry and overextended debate either save for the fact that arguing about the finer points of linguistics in rap music is like, to quote the movie Quiz Show, “plagiarizing a comic strip.” (Although I have a fondness for Jay-Z’s “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City” remix: “What you eat don’t make me shit” belongs on a t-shirt.)
Shall we be pedantic for a moment? A song like “Fairytale” is tantamount to a fictional narrative. It’s about a brawling, fractious relationship between two Micks* in Gotham. MacColl and MacGowan were never romantically involved in real life — thank Christ — and so her playful mockery of him as part of a working-class domestic routine should not be seen as her, or the songwriters’, actual mode of tabletalk. And even if it were, the fact that such tabletalk exists means that art has a moral responsibility to represent it faithfully. Brett at Harry’s Place shows how everyone from Bob Dylan to Lennon and Ono have had recourse in their music to the word “nigger” without calling down (plausible) accusations of racism. Would Dylan’s “Hurricane” have succeeded, do you suppose, if the line were:

To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum And to the black folks he was just a crazy n-word. No one doubted that he pulled the trigger. And though they could not produce the gun, The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed And the all-white jury agreed.

Something else to consider. Kirsty’s great friend and unimpeachable fan was Billy Bragg, who most certainly heard “Fairytale” in his day and yet never had a problem with it. Bragger’s not one to stay silent when a mate crosses the line, as evidenced by his reaction to Morrissey’s “Rivers of Blood” moment:

“Do I think he’s a racist? No. Do I think he’s foolish to say these things? Yes I do. He’s someone who used to be able to articulate an Englishness that’s attractive and charming. No, he’s not a racist, he’s a bore. And to the old Morrissey, that would have been even worse, and I speak as a Smiths fan.”

So can we all lighten the fuck up already? Christmas has precious few redeeming qualities, but “Fairytale” and the Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping” are two of them.