Sam Ryder has admitted that he would “love” for The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ to beat him to this year’s Christmas Number One spot.
The Eurovision star is one of the competitors in this year’s race, with his single ‘You’re Christmas to Me’, taken from the film Your Christmas or Mine 2.
However, since the news broke of the death of Shane MacGowan, fans of his festive classic are rallying to get that track to the Christmas Number One. It has never gone above second place in the UK charts, peaking there on its initial release in 1987. The song originally featured the vocals of Kirsty MacColl.
The Pogues frontman passed away “peacefully” on November 30, having died from pneumonia aged 65. His funeral took place on December 8 in Tipperary, close to where MacGowan spent his childhood.
In this week’s UK Singles Chart, ‘Fairytale of New York’ rose to Number Four, behind Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’ and Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas is You’, as well as Jack Harlow’s ‘Lovin on Me’. ‘You’re Christmas to Me’, which is only available via Amazon Music, currently sits at Number 12.
In an interview with the Daily Star, Ryder has said that he too would love to see ‘Fairytale’ clinch the title. “I’ve got love in my heart for the ‘Fairytale of New York’ situation,” he said. “That’s never got to Number One and that would be a gorgeous moment, especially now Shane MacGowan’s left us.”
“There’s a lot of tragedy wrapped up in that song – two gorgeous voices no longer with us and taken too soon. That’s me taking a lovely romantic view on it.”
MacGowan’s widow Victoria Mary Clarke has now joined the ‘Fairytale’ campaign, saying she was “very much in favour” of the track topping the charts. “It would be nice, wouldn’t it?” she said. “It should be the Christmas number one. It absolutely should.”
At MacGowan’s funeral, Glen Hansard and Lisa O’Neill were joined by members of The Pogues in a version of the song, which had friends and family of the singer dancing in the aisles of the church.
LCD Soundsystem also played their own version of the track this week, incorporating it into their performance of ‘New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down’ on December 10 in Queens.