A sad day for rock and roll, as the Pogues were a great band and Shane was a great frontman with that incredibly expressive voice. Thought I'd tell (retell?) a personally special story involving Fairytale of New York, IMO the best rock and roll Christmas song ever written. The song is melodic and haunting and gritty all at the same time (which is really hard to do) and the vocal duet by Shane and Kirsty MacColl is perfect.
Anyway, I was working in Ireland (at our Merck factory in Clonmel) through the holidays in 1993 and got out of work on Christmas Eve around 8 pm and of course went to the pub with a few of my Irish coworkers and after having a pint or three, Fairytale came on the soundsystem. The entire bar sang that song and my Irish friends were stunned that I was also belting out all the words - I gained a little bit of cred with them for that. It certainly sucked being away from home at that time, but that magical moment made up for it just a little bit.