The Pogues Featuring Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale Of New York (Stiff)

Just the very thing, you might think, to slap on if you're feeling tired, emotional and melancholy of a Christmas Eve is a slab of Shane MacGowan groaning charmingly off-key, lonely and drowning (literally, probably) in has sorrows as he props his weary body over his winnings on the horses. But not quite. Up pops Kirsty MacColl (whose dad wrote "Dirty Old Town" for the Pogues), along with a pile of accordions and what not and together they enter into a spirited duel, with Kirsty chucking insults such as "You scumbag/You maggot/You cheap lousy faggot." Quite magnificent. (Lola Borg, Smash Hits, December 2, 1987)