Fairy Tale of New York by Daniel Dilworth
Fairytale of New York is a 1987 hit Christmas song for Irish-British band The Pogues. Fairytale, although having an enduring popularity in Britain and Ireland, only peaked at No. 2 in the British charts that Christmas, beaten by Pet Shop Boys’ song Always on My Mind. This song was a cover of a song previously released by Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley, one of the best known singers of the 20th century, originally became popular in the 1950s, a decade synonymous with the emergence of many singers and entertainers, including Little Richard, Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin. Darin, an actor as well as a singer who died in 1973, was the subject of a 2004 biopic Beyond the Sea, which was co-written, directed and starred the actor Kevin Spacey. Spacey was, as of the time of writing, a subject of many allegations of impropriety and, as a result, was recast in the film All the Money in the World just weeks before its theatrical release, and was replaced with Christopher Plummer. “All the Money in the World” is the story of the infamous kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, grandson of the industrialist J Paul Getty. Getty was, in his day, one of the wealthiest men in the world, and is remembered for his frugality. John D Rockefeller is similarly remembered as one of the world’s wealthiest men; he was, in fact, the wealthiest American of all time. Rockefeller opened the Rockefeller University in New York and endowed his new foundation with part of his fortune. Rockefeller University was not the only university in the United States to be founded by a magnate; Carnegie Mellon University was formed through the merger of Mellon Institute of Industrial Research and Carnegie Institute of Technology, which was founded by Andrew Carnegie, a man as well-known for his business acumen as for his philanthropy. Carnegie donated large sums of money to various good causes, including to the foundation of libraries across the world which would be known as the Carnegie Libraries. The very first of these was built in the Scottish town of Dunfermline, Carnegie’s birthplace. Dunfermline is home to Dunfermline Athletic, an association football club who in 2006 hired manager Stephen Kenny in what would be a rather unsuccessful attempt to steer the recently-relegated club back to the Scottish Premier League. Kenny would later become one of only two managers in League of Ireland history to steer their club to the group stage of the Europa League, the other being Michael O’Neill who, in 2011, managed to manage the feat with Shamrock Rovers, only to come bottom of a group which also contained Premier League side Tottenham Hotspurs, who are based in London. London was also where singer-songwriter Elvis Costello was born. Costello, an acquaintance of Shane MacGowan, made a wager with the Pogues frontman that he couldn’t compose a Christmas song, a claim made by MacGowan but not supported by the band’s manager Frank Murray. Accepting the wager, MacGowan and his bandmate Jem Fincher eventually wrote the Christmas song Fairytale of New York.