The UK has a couple of Christmas radio perennials that hardly get any airplay here. One is the Pogues & Kirsty McCall's "Fairytale of New York," which starts with the killer line "It's Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank," and goes on to tell the story of an Irish couple who came to New York and how their dreams went wrong. It is very Irish-sounding and, despite containing a word you don't hear much on American radio (a six-letter word for "homosexual"), gets played to death on the BBC regional stations and UK commercial stations. The other is Chris DeBurgh's "A Spaceman Came Travelling," which casts the Nativity as being the doings of people from another world -- the star that shone that night was a spaceship! American radio would, understandably, be reluctant to play this one, but the Brits seem to love it.
