BRITAIN:A boss at BBC Radio yesterday reversed a decision to cut the word "faggot" from the Christmas song Fairytale of New Yorkafter Jean MacColl, mother of the singer of the song branded the move "ridiculous".
Jean MacColl said Radio 1 was "pathetic" for banning the word from the hit her daughter, Kirsty MacColl, had with the song's author, Shane MacGowan, 20 years ago.
Andy Parfitt, controller of the public broadcaster's Radio 1, said the decision to edit the song was wrong. "Radio 1 does not play homophobic lyrics or condone bullying of any kind," he said. "It is not always easy to get this right, mindful of our responsibility to our young audience. The unedited version will be played from now on."
MacColl's duet with the Pogues star is heading up the charts again this Christmas. But Radio 1 had decided to bleep out the word "faggot" from the line: " You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap, lousy faggot."
Terry Dolan, professor of Hiberno-English in UCD and author of the Hiberno-English Dictionary says he does not think that MacGowan was trying to be offensive with the use of the word "faggot", but was being imaginative or creative.
He said that while the BBC was going with the dictionary definition, Irish people tended not to use words so precisely, instead playing around with them. "Faggot", he says, comes from a classical Greek word phakelos, meaning a bundle of sticks tied together.
In the 19th century the word became associated with sexual misdemeanour and a "faggot master" was a person involved in the prostitution trade. It was also a verb, meaning to copulate with. In the 20th century "faggot" became associated with homosexuality and became common English slang.
Jean MacColl had earlier told Radio 5 Live Breakfast: "I think it's pathetic, I really do. It's absolute nonsense. Really, this is too ridiculous."
"Shane has written the most beautiful song and these characters live, they really live, and you have such sympathy for them," she said. "These are a couple of characters who are not in the first flush of youth, I wouldn't have thought. They are what they are, this is the way they speak.
"Today we have a lot of gratuitous vulgarity and f****** and whatever from people all over, which I think is quite unnecessary. But these are characters and they speak like that. It's like a play and it's very amusing and sad, and it's a great song." She said the likes of Shakespeare often used bawdy language.
Presenter Nicky Campbell suggested to her that the song's lyrics might be unsuitable for children hearing it on the school run. But Ms MacColl said: "As a parent, whatever age your child is, you have to guide them. You would say, 'well, some people talk like this'. But they'll know that from TV."
Before the reversal a Radio 1 spokesman said: "We are playing an edited version. It is a word members of our audience would find offensive."
Fairytale Of New Yorkwas first released in 1987 and reached number two in the charts. Fans are campaigning for it to reach number one this year, scuppering the chances of X Factor winner Leon Jackson.
Its singer Kirsty MacColl died in 2000, aged 41, when she was hit by a speedboat while diving during a holiday in Mexico.
Radio 1 had also decided to bleep out the word "slut" from the lyrics but to keep in "arse".
The lyrics read:
"You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed.
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last."
Radio 1 has played the song uncensored for the past 20 years.