<P> The video for the song was directed by Peter Dougherty and filmed in New York during a bitterly cold Thanksgiving week in November 1987 . The video opens with MacGowan sitting at a piano as if playing the song's opening refrain: however, as MacGowan could not play the instrument, the close - up shot of "his" hands actually features the hands of the band's pianist Fearnley wearing MacGowan's rings on his fingers . Fearnley found the experience "humiliating" but conceded that it looked better in the video to show MacGowan seated at the piano . </P> <P> Part of the video was filmed inside a real police station on the Lower East Side . Matt Dillon plays a police officer who "arrests" MacGowan and takes him to the cells . Dillon recalled that he had been afraid to handle his friend roughly, and had to be ordered by Dougherty and MacGowan to use force . MacGowan and the rest of the band were drinking throughout the shoot, and the police became concerned about their increasingly rowdy behaviour in the cells . Dillon, who was sober, had to intervene and reassure the police that there would be no problems . </P> <P> The chorus of the song includes the line "The boys of the NYPD choir still singing' Galway Bay"'. In reality the NYPD (New York City Police Department) does not have a choir, the closest thing being the Pipes and Drums of the NYPD's Emerald Society who are featured in the video for the song . The NYPD Pipes and Drums did not know "Galway Bay" and so sang a song that all of them knew the words to--the "Mickey Mouse March", the theme tune for The Mickey Mouse Club television series . The footage was then slowed down and shown in brief sections to disguise the fact the Pipes and Drums were singing a different song . Murray recalled that the Pipes and Drums had been drinking on the coach that brought them to the video shoot, and by the time they arrived they were more drunk than the band, refusing to work unless they were supplied with more alcohol . </P> <P> The song attracted attention from the start due to some of the language used in its second verse, where MacGowan's character refers to MacColl's character as "an old slut on junk" (heroin), and MacColl responds with a tirade that includes the words "faggot" and "arse". </P>

The pogues featuring kirsty maccoll - fairytale of new york