It was Christmas Eve babe
Jem Finer-Shane Macgowan-the pogues
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won’t see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you
The hours and days aren’t moving fast enough for my kiddos as we sit two weeks from Santa Mayhem. All while ThisDad is wondering how to fit a month of work into the next fourteen days. Such is the circle sleigh ride of life. Songs 21 and 22 on the list as we chug away towards the big day…
Christmas Lights by Coldplay
A little bit of a continuation from yesterday in that this tune is about “the one that got away” and how loneliness during a holiday just hits differently. That being said, the refrain change at the end of the song has an uplifting tone I really enjoy.
I dig Coldplay and I dig this song. So it makes 21 on the list.
Fairytale of New York (Edited Version) by The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl
I absolutely love this song.
ThisDad is in part 4th generation Irish immigrant. Great Grandma Flynn on my Dad’s side having left the old country to find a life here in America.
The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl just imbue the Irish Ethos into every lyric and note of this song. A T’ousand miles difference between the cliche Irish drinker, and the Irishman far from home, far from family, far from hope, and too close to a drink.
I would encourage listening to this song a few times through.
The very simple tale of two young souls who meet on a magical Christmas Eve only to see the magic fade once life sets back in. Neither protagonist is a scoundrel, but neither can slay their demons to see their dreams through.
They clearly love each other, but they have clearly failed each other too.
This song makes me think of Christmases when I clearly failed those I so clearly love. Not in any sort of “drunk tank” way. More of life got big, money got small, my mind got selfish, and I let people down.
As I mentioned yesterday a few tunes on here, while they make me happy to listen to, are not cut from the Hallmark Christmas mold.
Life can bring high tide and low. Holidays or otherwise.
It’s pushing from one to the next that makes all the trials and tribulations worth it.
The below chorus of this song plays three times. Like the three Irish ghosts borrowed from Scrooge.
The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing Galway Bay
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day
The first comes in the past. Right after the magical Christmas Eve, when the Fairytale begins.
The second is in the present when the chips are down and the love is a candle burned down the holder’s edge.
The last time ends the song. Looking towards the future. Will they make it? Does the fairytale end?
If you have read this far you know what ThisDad thinks.
Thanks for reading.
Photo by Dmitrij Paskevic on Unsplash
P.S. BONUS IRISH STUFF
The song the NYPD Choir was singing: Galway Bay is about going home to see Ireland even if it is the last day and last thing you see. Gives the Chorus even more heft.
Here is the version of that song from the movie “The Quiet Man”
P.P.S. BONUS IRISH STUFF
The below pictures are from two separate trips across the pond. ThisDad did not make it to Grandma Flynn’s home county where the stone walls of her cottage still stand.
Her grandsons Jerry and Ukele Tom did. Her real Fairytale journey to a new country and a new life planted a wonderful tree with branches that are still growing. I hope someday to take my Kate, named after her Kate, back to this wonderful Isle and see where the Fairytale began.
This Dad's Life STL 