S10E12: Steve Lillywhite joins Gary and Guy to celebrate 'Fairytale of New York'
Rockonteurs with Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt
Rhino UK
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 11 December 2025
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on the Rockonteurs podcast, Gary and Guy quiz each other on great songs that were denied a No.1 and we welcome back our dear friend, the legendary record producer Steve Lillywhite to the show.
Steve has worked with some of the biggest and best artists on the planet - and produced the nation’s favourite Christmas song ‘Fairytale of New York’.
In this special end of season episode, Steve talks about the song, the recording in summer 1987, the new live version he has mixed recorded at the Glasgow Barrowland in Dec 1987 and its enduring legacy.
The new EP is out now and you can find out more here: http://thepogues.lnk.to/FONYZoetrope
Instagram @rockonteurs @guyprattofficial @garyjkemp @gimmesugarproductions
Listen to the podcast and watch some of our latest episodes on our Rockonteurs YouTube channel.
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Produced for WMG UK by Ben Jones at Gimme Sugar Productions
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you like listening to Rockonteurs, then we would love you to subscribe to us permanently. |
| 0:05.7 | So hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from. |
| 0:11.4 | Okay, guys, I'm ready. |
| 0:13.2 | You know this thing about the 10,000 hours of experience? |
| 0:16.2 | When we recorded Arnold Lane, we'd done about 50 hours. |
| 0:19.5 | I love the fact he's dancing to it naked, like it's so hedonistic. What you're doing, my opinion, is basically an oral history of rock and roll. I'm in a band now. It's called Roxy Music. He started playing that as his main guitar. So it was his main guitar, so I just said you can have it. Thank you guys for still being around, still making music, still being into it, and doing |
| 0:38.8 | this podcast. It's, uh, it's fabulous. Everyone in the band was completely disengaged from their |
| 0:45.8 | partners, a while we made rumours. But it's a big tune for sure. I actually wrote that |
| 0:50.6 | originally for Tina Turner. The Rock Haunters podcast with Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt. |
| 0:55.8 | Keep our rocking! |
| 0:58.1 | Hello, Gary. |
| 0:59.4 | Hello, Guy. |
| 1:00.5 | So I'm in my country house, right? |
| 1:02.8 | I'm spoilt enough to have a country house. |
| 1:04.4 | It's terrible. |
| 1:05.0 | Seeds, yes. |
| 1:06.9 | Seats, my seat, yes. |
| 1:09.0 | And my computer screen is cracked. I can't see anything. So I'm on my phone |
| 1:14.6 | today. So excuse any, you know, it's not going to sound as technically wonderful as it normally |
| 1:20.4 | does. But I'm sure Ben Jones, our producer will smartness up. Exactly. That's terrible. |
| 1:24.7 | It actually reminds me of, but that great story that Simon Armitage told us of when he got the gig to be Poet Laureate. |
| 1:32.5 | And it was during COVID. So he was summoned to Buckingham Palace. But the queen was at Windsor. And he was taken into this room. And there was just a TV. And she was on on a TV but because it's the royal family and |
... |
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