Shane MacGowan: Ex-NYPD piper recalls rollicking shoot of classic Pogues video

By Madeline Halpert in New York and Max MatzaBBC News

Kevin P McCarthy met Shane MacGowan 36 years before his death

The Irish-American officers of the New York Police Department Pipes and Drums band had never heard of The Pogues on the night that they featured in the band’s most famous and beloved music video.

Fairytale of New York was filmed in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park in November 1987 on one of the coldest days of the year, recounts drummer and bagpipe player Kevin P McCarthy.

McCarthy, a now-retired NYPD detective, says the group arrived for their second gig of the night and were surprised to discover that they would not need to play their instruments during the frigid two-hour film shoot.

The Pogues, he says, “wanted some authenticity” to go with their song, which features the line: “The boys of the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay”.

But there was one problem – the NYPD does not have any such choir, says McCarthy, whose own grandparents came to the US from County Galway in the Republic of Ireland.

“So they said: Well, the next best thing is we can get a group of, you know, cops that do something significant for the Irish heritage,” he says.

That is how the bagpipers and drummers of the NYPD came to play a starring role in the classic video, which is a mainstay of every Christmas playlist in the UK and Ireland.

The group, acting like a choir, stood beside their instruments in full regalia as they mouthed the words to what was supposed to be the song Galway Bay.

The director just told them to sing Irish songs, says McCarthy. But there was another problem.

Group members only knew a handful of Irish tunes, but none of the songs were known by all, “and my Danny Boy sounds a lot different” than the next man’s Danny Boy.

“The director goes, as long as you’re all singing one song that you all know the words to,” he tells BBC News.

“So I yelled out ‘why don’t we sing Mickey Mouse’. We all know that. We’re all kids at once you know.”

So they began singing the classic theme song to the Mickey Mouse Club children’s TV programme.

“M – I – C – K – E – Y – M – O – U – S – E, Micky Mouse! Mickey Mouse!” the group sang.

McPherson and MacGowan on the night they met

To match the music, the group had to slow down their singing.

“We had no idea what The Pogues were gonna do,” he says.

“We had no idea what the song was about. We couldn’t even pretend we knew it ’cause we never heard of them or the song.”

Shane McGowan, the group’s frontman who died on Thursday at 65, kept the group entertained with his drunken – “legless” – antics that night, McCarthy fondly recalls.

At one point MacGowan asked to inspect an officer’s mace, the fragile wand used to direct bandmates, and threw it high into the air before spectacularly and effortlessly catching it in one hand.

“We all gasped when he threw it,” he laughs, explaining how they were certain it would break into pieces when it landed and his fellow officer would then “kill Shane MacGowan”.

“It was basically a fun night. A lot of laughs,” he says.

Eight months later it was past midnight and he was sitting at a bar in Queens after getting off a late shift on patrol when he saw the video on MTV.

“I instantaneously loved the song. The video was nice,” he says, but, “the song really hooked me right off the bat.”

“It really hit me, because the song’s about New York and a couple down on their luck.”

Fairytale of New York blew up on the charts in the UK and Ireland. Every year at Christmas, he gets a call from his cousin in Ireland, who he says “went berserk” when the song first debuted.

Shane MacGowan and other bandmates kept in touch for a few years after filming the video, occasionally calling to ask for advice about the safety of certain neighbourhoods in New York.

After filming the video, McCarthy and the NYPD Pipe and Drums band went on to appear in films such as The Departed and Ghostbusters 2.

The group’s Facebook account, reacting to MacGowan’s death, praised the “poet, singer and songwriter” for having “introduced an entire generation to Irish music”.

“‘Good night and God guard you forever’ Shane,” the band posted.

And every five years or so, McCarthy gets a call from a UK journalist or documentarian asking him to recount his participation in the historic song.

And every Christmas he gets a “big reminder” of how he first discovered the classic lines:

“The boys of the NYPD choir still singing Galway Bay

“And the bells are ringing out for Christmas Day.”

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