Scary Tale Of New York
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Easily my favourite Christmas song of all time is 'Fairy Tale Of New York' by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. With the death of Shane MacGowan I decided to write something to the tune of 'Fairy Tale'. I did this once before with 'He's My Other' but I'd presumed that 'Fairy Tale' was a worldwide hit... which, astoundingly... it wasn't!
With this in mind, I have rearranged verses to create a (hopefully) better read. Thus... fans of 'Fairy Tale Of New York' may struggle to match my words to the tune... or perhaps, have fun trying.
I've tried to supply a link to 'Fairy Tale Of New York' but no can do... just google it!
______________________________
It’s Christmas Eve, Babe
In the car pound
It shouldn’t be this way
Should not have been found
But I’m the lucky one
I am the thirteenth one
And when I got a scare
I hi-tailed out of there
But everywhere I went
It seems a ghoul was sent
Until I smashed my cab
With one unholy dent
So happy Christmas
My wife and baby
I have to leave you now
And that’s no maybe…
I’ve got lungs that are punctured from ribs that are broke
A spectre glared at me and called me a joke
I should have completed that line up that day
To comprehend fate would always have his way
*
Twas on Christmas Eve in two-thousand-and-one
Twelve yellow cab drivers at down of the sun
They waited in line just outside Central Park
And sat, engines idling, until it was dark
But where they went when they went, nobody knew
Those cabs disappeared without leaving a clue
Yet twenty years on during each Christmas new
Don’t hail yellow cabs or you’ll disappear too
It’s crazy, it’s hazy, a bell tolled aloud
And New York cab drivers found thirteen’s a crowd
Till voices, malignant and laden with spite
Said, “Fear not the water; the ice shall not bite.”
For years hacks have dug but their efforts are thwarted
For little is known and far less is reported
One night on his iPhone from inside the park
One Journo’s last words were, “Sod this for a lark!”
Don’t enter the park in the depths of the night
It’s more than just baddies that hide out of sight
It might not be muggers that give you a fright
If that was the problem they’d lock it up…. Right?
But rumours like tumours spread like baby boomers
Resulting in whispers from some doom and gloomers
So now I bring word and it’s slightly absurd
But when I’m gone please tell the world what you’ve heard…
That twelve police divers found twelve taxi drivers
In twelve sunken taxis, that’s twelve non survivors
In Central Park’s lakes with their feet off the brakes
Of twelve rotting drivers, just one re-awakes
That Yellow cab driver was not a survivor
But turned his head slowly to wink at the diver
The diver recoiled and soon riddled with fears
Kept asking how sunken men still can shed tears
And yet as twelve taxis were hauled from the drink
Detectives were left with no clue what to think
Twelve zip up bags lay, side by side, straight and neat
But each long lost driver had gone from his seat
And that’s when it started, those dearly departed
Set out to relocate their loves broken hearted
Some say that they wander in search of their wives
Who if found ‘in company’ soon lose their lives
But those cabs retrieved that were riddled with rust
Some fifteen years later were finally crushed
Yet parapsychologists try to keep tabs
On twelve phantom drivers in twelve phantom cabs
And now the Big Apple is too scared to sleep
In Grand Central Station the fears now run deep
The whispering walls that now whisper aloud
Are screaming out threats that the dead have avowed
On Fifth Avenue men with half rotted faces
And clothes that are sodden take shambling paces
They stumble their way into unprepared places
And innocent people become murder cases
*
And the boss of the NYPD said
Just file it all away
We must not ladle fear on Christmas Day
*
A distant bell now tolls
It’s called so many souls
It seems that finally
Its waters beckon me
And so my final act
To spell out every fact
I testify to you
So do what you must do
From now there will be seen
What should have always been
One more man - slimy green
And phantom cabs… thirteen
*
And the boss of the NYPD says
Just file it all away
We must not ladle fear on Christmas Day
Copyright © Terry Flood | Year Posted 2023
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