r.padgett,

I can't listen to Kirsty McColl without lamenting her loss.

I bought a multi-CD set of The Pogues and there are different versions of Fairytale of NY from the earliest tentative demo tape through to the last version. I haven't seen the doco but I think it would be interesting. The first female singer was not Kirsty McColl, and the change of singer changed the feeling of the song for me. She nailed it - of course.

I reopened the thread just because I read the article that I linked to on the Oz ABC news site. If you haven't read that article yet, it was a worthwhile opinion piece.