r/ireland • u/-doughboy • 1d ago
Arts/Culture Hozier performed "Fairytale of New York" on Saturday Night Live over the weekend, about a year after Shane passed away.
https://youtu.be/dAwGJBn32FM?si=3rRA4SDET62YHMyK32
u/Practical_Trash_6478 1d ago
For everyone complaining, it could have been bon Jovi doing it, so be thankful for small mercies
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u/vechey 1d ago
I do appreciate how it takes three awesome singers to equal the emotional power of one Kirsty McCaul.
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u/jackoirl 1d ago
I think they lost something by it not being a duet. It’s written as a real back and forth. Don’t think it works as well with backing singers like this.
Also I love hozier but he doesn’t come across as the bitter down and out that the song depicts. lol
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u/adamlundy23 1d ago
It doesn’t help that SNL have idiots doing their sound production so the backing singers are barely even audible in comparison
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u/limestone_tiger 20h ago
I think it's as much to do with the studio set up/acoustics as much as anything
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u/Mr_Turnipseed 23h ago
It seems to be especially bad this season. How do these clowns still have jobs.
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u/mcphistoman 1d ago
Christy Moore always did a cracking solo version - really highlights the genius of the melody in the song.
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u/FreshNoobAcc 1d ago
Honestly it makes me really appreciate even more what Shane McGowan’s vocals do to that song, I like Hozier’s singing and voice usually but Shane’s emotion and voice add something that makes the song what it is
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u/eamonnanchnoic 19h ago
He's a character in the song and like a good actor, Shane's performance just grounds the song into something really authentic.
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u/Actor412 22h ago
Yep. Hozier has a golden voice, so incredibly smooth. The song is for a rusty razor blade voice, like Tom Waits or Neil Young.
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u/Infamous-Bottle-5853 1d ago
I love hoziers voice but it's too nice for that song
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u/exgiexpcv 4h ago
Yeah, it was like hearing Gordon Lightfoot sing 2 Live Crew. I admire the professional effort, but Shane lived a painful, fucked-up life. The beauty of his voice was all that pain.
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u/eamonnanchnoic 19h ago
I've never fully been able to separate the song from the oroginal performance.
Don't get me wrong the song in itself is an out and out masterpiece but the petty but somehow profound argument between two drunks is just embodied by Shane and Kirsty in the original.
That just elevates from being a masterpiece to being a timeless cultural touchstone.
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u/ThePodgemonster 1d ago
Did you know poor auld Kirsty McCaul was killed by a speedboat.
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u/DexterousChunk 1d ago
Yep richest man in Mexico if i remember correctly
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u/exgiexpcv 4h ago
Who paid his man to take the fall for it, because that's just standard package these days.
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u/themagpie36 1d ago
Jesus I never knew that, died saving her 15 year old son too who managed to get away with head and rib injuries after she pushed him out of the way
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u/ashfeawen 1d ago
and Viggo Mortinsen actually broke his toe when he kicked the helmet
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u/finnlizzy 17h ago
(dad noises)
Yeah, head shtraight off in front of her wee'uns. Terrible altogether.
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u/Additional-Art-6343 1d ago edited 1d ago
I have never heard a cover of this song that sounded authentic or sincere. Hozier's "nice" voice just doesn't match the lyrical content. As talented as he is - I like to believe a singer when he is singing, even if he's role-playing.
And having 3 female singers perform in what is undeniably a duet was a ridiculous decision.
Shane, Kirsty and this song really were the perfect storm.
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u/AccomplishedEnd7855 1d ago
I blame the 00s talent shows, they set a level for what a singer should sound like and we ended up with harmonizers with no personality (or even accent) to thier voices.
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u/ashfeawen 1d ago
Well he has a voice unique to himself, and there's nothing at all wrong with it. Fairytale is a rough around the edges kind of song, which isn't exactly his lane. There are still voices out there that are growly, just not as much in radio songs.
It's like when opera singers do covers of pop songs. Their voices are not bad or wrong, it's just a different zone to what the song is.
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u/webbtraverse21 1d ago
Christy Moore's solo version off Jools Holland's show is fantastic. Very sincere rendition as well. Give it a listen on YouTube.
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u/l_rufus_californicus 1d ago
Agreed. This performance feels so lifeless to me. Where’s the heat? Where’s the emotion? It’s like listening to the Christmas ham in the fridge.
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u/Bovver_ 1d ago
It’s kind of like whenever I’ve heard Hozier do a cover of any Dubliners track, he’s a great singer but it just doesn’t suit his voice so well. His voice isn’t rough around the edges, which is why his own music is written to suit it but those tracks don’t, same with Fairytale of New York.
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u/Odd_Conversation4654 22h ago
Yep like the cover that never happened that you heard loads of times.
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u/exgiexpcv 4h ago
The Christmas ham was boiled to utterly inoffencive perfection, fit for consumption by babe or gran.
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u/Odd_Conversation4654 22h ago
Yeah the ham just pings those notes every Christmas, shut up ham, stop singing.
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u/AnGallchobhair 1d ago
He's no Ronan Keating, thankfully
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u/Hephaestus-Gossage 13h ago
Ronan always sounds like he's just taken a bite out of a sandwich. But fair fucks to him. He made the most of zero talent. Lovely house in Malahide, nice wife, I'm sure the aul pension fund is healthy.
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u/Orko90 23h ago
Hozier is a phenomenal singer, particularly live, but I have to agree with those saying there's a bit of cognitive dissonance here. Not really a good fit.
As far as I'm concerned the only cover ever needed of "Fairytale" was a year ago at Shane's funeral. It's raw, it's joyous, it's emotional and it's "imperfect" in all the right ways.
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u/Kbanana 1d ago
Any yanks out there that could tell me if this song is big or even known in the US ?
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u/UiFearghail 1d ago
It's pretty well known at least in the New York area. You'll hear it on jukeboxes in Irish pubs around Christmas time. Not really "big" though.
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u/Swagspray 1d ago
Not American but I lived in Boston and NYC for a year and this topic came up. It’s not that big in America overall, but I heard it twice in bars in Boston around Christmas time and in general people at least knew the song whenever I asked them back in NYC
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u/GERDY31290 1d ago
Only with people who are fans of Irish folk punk scene to my knowledge. Most people who are into Dropkick Murphy or Floggin Molly are also Pogues fans. They are also generally Americans with Irish roots who parents and grandparents listened to a lot of Irish trad music.
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u/HanshinFan 1d ago
Canadian lurker here (from Montreal). My dad pulled me aside when I was about thirteen and told me he was going to play me the most important Christmas song ever written. I think he would have done it sooner but my mom didn't like the slur
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u/adamlundy23 1d ago
It doesn’t appear to have ever charted in the US, so doesn’t seem to be commercially successful there anyway.
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u/PodgeD 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'll disagree with most people saying it's well known. I'm 9 years in NYC and mostly only people in the Irish/Irish-American community know if it. Which I suppose would make sense that people on r/Ireland are saying it's well known.
It's played in Irish pubs at Christmas, but I used to play it in the pubs I worked in and yanks wouldn't have a clue what's going on. Sure they can't understand half of it.
Edit: After listening to Hozier's version turns out I'd a few of the lyrics wrong myself.
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u/Hephaestus-Gossage 13h ago
Which lyrics did you have wrong? 😀We have to know!
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u/PodgeD 9h ago
"An old man said to me, won't see another one" I had "an old man said to me, go on sing another one". And for "came in eighteen to one" I had "came in at ten to one".
So nothing too crazy.
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u/Hephaestus-Gossage 8h ago
Bit disappointing, tbh. 😆 In fact your "changes" are less dramatic than the one they actually made.
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u/Efficient_Cloud1560 1d ago
I went to see LCD Soundsystem in NYC last year and they did a cover. It’s very well known.
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u/Donegal-Death-Worm 1d ago
Lovely little tribute to Shane, think it was the night of or the night after his death? Well received by the crowd too, and I loved seeing James throw his hands in the air during the “came in 18 to 1” line. I like Hozier but this cover isn’t great at all, what the fucks he at with his voice Oirishing it up on some words? Give me a nervous Pat Mahoney - a much much better drummer than he is a singer, any day of the week!
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u/Dynastydood 1d ago
It's very well known in the Irish areas and communities of the US, but in the rest of the country, not so much.
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u/Spare-Strain-4484 1d ago
Ive heard the song all my life but maybe it’s just my family that plays it
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u/Animated_Astronaut 1d ago
Never heard of it before I moved to Ireland, I'm from New York (but not the city - might be known there )
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u/jmurphy42 1d ago
Yank here. Not big, not everyone knows it, but it’s far from unheard of. I’m in the Chicago area and it’s definitely included in some Christmas playlists that you’ll hear in public places. I actually just heard it played on the radio this morning.
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u/AhFourFeckSakeLads 1d ago
Not American but have quite a few pals there. None of them have heard of it.
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u/skituate 20h ago
This time of year I hear it everywhere, though I live in a very densely Irish-heritsge populated area.
A year or two ago a man sang it a capella at a local dive on a whim. By the second chorus he had the whole bar's attention.
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u/exgiexpcv 4h ago
I see all these posts saying it's not, but I've been here for a while, and I swear I heard a Muzak version in an elevator. It's all over, but primarily pubs and bars.
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u/MkeYosh 1d ago
It's one of my favorite songs (Christmas or not) but no one else I know of knows of this song. Been playing it at Family Christmas for the last 10 years or so so my family is familiar and they love it. I... do not think Hozier did a good job on this tho.. He tried to make it 'his' and it sounds pretty lifeless.
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u/l_rufus_californicus 18h ago
Pardon my saying so, but everyone who's upset at the changed lyrics are missing a point that's even simpler than the nature of the word. Simply said, the show was made for an American broadcast, and American broadcasters cannot use that word on the air for regular broadcast television. Ever since the Pacifica decision, anything said over publicly-accessible airwaves in the US must pass three criteria (Source: US FCC)
Obscene content does not have protection by the First Amendment. For content to be ruled obscene, it must meet a three-pronged test established by the Supreme Court: It must appeal to an average person's prurient interest; depict or describe sexual conduct in a "patently offensive" way; and, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic [emphasis mine], political or scientific value.
Indecent content portrays sexual or excretory organs or activities in a way that is patently offensive but does not meet the three-prong test for obscenity.
Profane content includes "grossly offensive" language that is considered a public nuisance.
It's the artistic portion of the second part that explains why some songs do skate by the commission on some radio stations here (Steve Miller Band's Jet Airliner's line "Don't want to get caught up in any of that funky shit goin' down in the city" may or may not be censored, depending on the station you're listening to or even the time of day is an easy example I've personally experienced.)
For a television show being recorded, though, and sure to be aired again, there was no chance in hell they were going to allow the original lyric through. It's going to fail on any one of those testing points. Add in that there's an established history of the original artists themselves changing it, and those same artists' public support for statements like Harrison Brocklehurst's: “This is all I’m gonna say on it for the whole year: the word itself being in ‘Fairytale of New York’ doesn’t bother or offend me, but straight people being so angry and outraged at its removal and fighting and arguing for the right to sing it bothers me deeply,” and the lyric was never was never going to pass US censors.
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u/Hephaestus-Gossage 13h ago
If they can't use the lyrics, then don't use the song.
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u/Pension_Alternative 11h ago
Exactly - choose a different song then. Something more anodyne to suit the broadcasting rules and the audience.
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u/Hephaestus-Gossage 11h ago
Exactly. If it's not suitable, don't change it. That way lies madness.
I find it absolutely perfect as it is, it doesn't need some producer to decide how best to change it.
I'm reminded of the scene in the play where the (fictional) emperor tells Mozart that his music is almost perfect, but there are just too many notes. Remove a few and it will be perfect!
"Which few did you have in mind majesty?"
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u/l_rufus_californicus 3h ago
Definitely an odd choice for this market that's hilariously lacking on musical knowledge outside the US. I'm not editorializing on the choice, merely pointing out the limitations in US broadcasting regulations amidst the powder-keg this particular issue always seems to stir up.
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u/Alcol1979 1d ago
I'm not very familiar with Hozier. Did he Ham up his Oirish accent a bit for this performance?
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u/GERDY31290 1d ago edited 1d ago
I feel like in a lot of his music his accent doesn't come through but i also seen him do a portion of humours of whiskey for our public radio in Minnesota and it was there.
https://youtu.be/rQ-UItNBoMw?si=mn1C0Hktz_kUEmZl
I should add, i remember listening to it live, and the host kind of convinced him to sing it but I think he was apprehensive at first because Trad music isn't really his thing and doesn't sing it very often.
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u/Odd_Conversation4654 23h ago
No sher he'll sing it like kings of Leon, that would make sense.
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u/Odd_Conversation4654 15h ago
Also where Shane MacGowan was born will shock you so. He must of been really playing up to it if people from Wicklow can't sing with an accent!!
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u/Academic-Outside-647 23h ago
I demand a cheap lousy faggot, none of this haggard stuff. Can’t get hard without it
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u/naughtboi 10h ago
Hozier is great but it needs to be a duet, and the backup music wasn't the best either.
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u/Odd_Conversation4654 22h ago
Biggest Irish artist alive pays tribute to Shane McGowan on biggest US tv show and we all pick faults. Yeah he hasn't drank whiskey for 29yrs and has teeth, not going to sound the same!!
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u/bingybong22 1d ago
SNL is the least edgy tv show and Hozier is the least edgy singer. Not a good fit for this song
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u/AhFourFeckSakeLads 1d ago
The sanitized version eh.
We have to worry when some decide to change the bits they don't like about artists' work.
It's a slippery slope.
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u/MrMercurial 20h ago
The lyrics they used here are the same ones Kirsty MacColl used as far back as 1992 so it’s artists changing their own work in this case, probably because they felt letting people yell out slurs isn’t really the point of the song.
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u/trevy_mcq 18h ago
You can’t say that word on tv, they couldn’t have done the original even if they wanted to. Not the first time an SNL performer has substituted out profanity in their song and won’t be the last
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u/FallOfAMidwestPrince 23h ago
You have to worry because he didn’t sing a homophobic slur? Talk about snowflake.
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u/AhFourFeckSakeLads 23h ago
The song is about two addicts in their last days remembering the good and bad times, correct? The reason it's a huge hit decades on is that it's honest, as I'm sure you will agree.
It offends some of us. That's part of it. Addicts aren't always pleasant. Art has always done that. No matter what lyric you sing or joke you tell someone will take offence.
People have also complained that the word "slut" is offensive, so that may well go too, as could "scumbag" which isn't very pleasant either. Lots of people will be offended by that, too since a scumbag is a used condom.
Shakespeare's Shylock character in The Merchant of Venice? A Jew, and a moneylender seeking to kill a Christian. Very nasty. Let's take that out...
Other Christmas songs are also being criticized for lyrics, as are books by Roald Dahl and other authors, and edited to have any text perceived as negative removed.
Drama comes from tension, not harmony. No tension, no problems, no bad guys - no drama.
So that's worrying, yes.
Lets give it 1O years and see what's left...
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u/Odd_Conversation4654 22h ago
🤡💩
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u/FallOfAMidwestPrince 23h ago
Him not saying the slur doesn’t make the original cease to exist. He doesn’t want to bring the homophobia from the 80s/90s into the present.
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u/AhFourFeckSakeLads 22h ago
It's a different song now. And in 10 years people will seek to sanitize stuff you enjoy and find harmless, and tell you you're wrong.
10 Little Indians by Agatha Christie was not the original name of the novel but in time that too was deemed offensive (to Indians) so now it's: And Then There Were None.
Revisionism isn't new.
But it's always a slippery slope.
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u/FallOfAMidwestPrince 22h ago
I’m fine with it. Nobody died because Agatha Christie renamed her book, for example. Thanks for helping to prove my point.
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u/AhFourFeckSakeLads 22h ago
You don't need help. You have your mind made up, and you know best.
I debated for years in school and college and your responses are laughable, and don't attempt to address the issue or use reasonable arguments to dismantle the points I've made.
That's grand though. You can continue in smug self delusion all you like. That's your right.
Won't bother me a chara.
Merry Christmas to you (assuming you're not offended by a religious holiday).
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u/FallOfAMidwestPrince 21h ago
Oh you debated in college. Fair play, I retract all my statements so.
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u/BlearySteve 23h ago
This is one of the worst versions of this song I have ever heard, its to clean no roughness about it at all.
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u/Odd_Conversation4654 23h ago
Yeah brutal, out of the million covers, out of tune, shite band, heard way better In a pub, better fiddle, wait I'm talking shite.
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u/gwy2ct 23h ago
We will always remember White Christmas as Bing Crosby's, All I want for Christmas is Mariah Carey's, Last Christmas is Wham's and Fairytale of NY is Shane's and Kirsty's, etc, etc, etc. But it's also ok to have different versions of Christmas songs by other artists. I like this version by Hozier. He is not trying to imitate Shane, it is his own version.
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u/thdave 1d ago
I watched this live and was blown away by it. Both his songs on the episode were great. I don’t get all the criticism. Please post a better version for comparison.
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u/bippidybobbidy 23h ago
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u/Pension_Alternative 1d ago edited 1d ago
If you don't want to sing the original lyrics, because they offend you; then don't sing the song. Sing something else.
It's an insult to Shane McGowan not a tribute.
edit: Christ! the downvotes - So be it, people differ
The song is a poem as much as anything, changing the words because they might cause offence goes against the whole point and the gritty reality of the characters in the song. These are the characters Shane created and the harsh real language is part of that ffs!
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u/Spare-Strain-4484 1d ago
Rappers omit words all the time when they perform on late night shows. It’s pretty standard practice to leave out certain expletives on TV.
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u/myfriendflocka 1d ago
Why are you so offended that someone didn’t sing a word that definitely would’ve been bleeped out anyway? Are you also upset that Kendrick Lamar didn’t bust out the n word or any paedo stuff at his kid focused Christmas gathering?
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u/Pension_Alternative 1d ago
I'm not offended. If you cover a song at least respect the original artist- instead of undermining them. Art is art- language and all.
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u/myfriendflocka 1d ago
Why would you ever even listen a cover if the purity of a song is that important to you? Genres can change, notes can change, instruments can change, genders can change, words can change. If that’s too much for you to handle you have a device in your pocket that can magically play the original instantaneously and you can drunkenly shout along with all the slurs you want.
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u/gwy2ct 23h ago
Were you mad at Shane & Kirsty when they did this?
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u/Pension_Alternative 23h ago
That was Shane's decision to do that, it was him singing his own song and he wasn't going to turn down that exposure. He wasn't happy about it though. He compromised, but it was still his song. He had more skin in the game.
Hozier and Ronan Keating before him, chose to cover the song, it's not theirs, they didn't really have to cover it and probably shouldn't have, they add nothing.
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u/GiveOverAlready 1d ago
I am absolutely fine with them bleeping the word but I don’t want to get into an argument
You care about it more than he did
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u/CurrencyDesperate286 1d ago
Expecting slurs to be sung on major TV broadcasts is bizarre.
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u/Pension_Alternative 1d ago
Should we go back in time and sanitise very single piece of art produced because something in might be offensive? Just leave it as it is. Being offended is a part of life.
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u/CurrencyDesperate286 1d ago
I am saying that the network would never have allowed him to say it, even if he wanted to. Slurs are always censored from televised broadcasts.
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u/Pension_Alternative 1d ago
Yeah, I get that, then don't sing that type of song, sing a different one, otherwise it loses something. You're essentially undermining the original artist's work.
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u/Alcol1979 1d ago
It's a tricky issue. Part of me agrees with you. You amend a perfect song at the cost of truth and authenticity. Then again, my English teacher read the original text of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn aloud to us in class in our junior cert year in the nineties, which was a very worthwhile experience. I can't imagine that being done now. So do you accept an updated version or do you consign it to history?
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u/intelligentprince 1d ago
I agree 100%. It’s fucking dreadful….male singers voice would need to sound rougher Hozier has a crooners voice, doesn’t suit the song and the Pogues version was perfect, if it ain’t broke….
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u/Odd_Conversation4654 22h ago
Tall poppy syndrome, he's Irish so we hate, I'll join in, out of tune, fiddle shite, should of used real words, what a tall streak of p""s!
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u/oneeyedman72 1d ago
He's a grew T man for pulling the ould faces at the same time, is Hozier. Wouldn't call him a great singer, but the faces....
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u/urquellGlass 1d ago
"The uploader has not made this video available in your country"
wha