The Pogues' song "Fairytale of New York" is a very popular Christmas song across the pond. In 2004 it won a poll as the best Christmas song of all time. This year the song is the source of controversy, however, as the BBC is editing the lyrics when playing it on the air.

BBC's Radio 1 edited the word "faggot" out of the Pogue's Christmas standard "Fairytale of New York", stating that the decision was made because "this is a word that members of our audience would find offensive". This, despite the fact that the song has played in an unedited version for the last 20 years. The song has topped several Best Christmas Song polls in Britain, and it regularly hit the number one spot every Christmas. (Yes, a song with that word in it is a Christmas favorite. England -- it's a different planet.)

In the song, the late singer Kirsty MacColl takes on the voice of a character who
sings, "You scumbag, you maggot/You cheap lousy faggot" in an argument with another character in the song sung by Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan. Jean MacColl, the late singer's mother, called the ban "ridiculous", saying, "These are a couple of characters . . . Today we have a lot of a gratuitous vulgarity and ... whatever from people all over which I think is quite unnecessary. These are characters and they speak like that."

The offending verse reads as follows:

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.

As noted above, this part of the song is an exchange between two characters in the song. The full lyrics are on the Pogues website here. Here is the video and here is a live performance of the song.

UPDATE: Apparently the BBC backed down.