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A 4:31 MASTERPIECE br> Re: Patrick Hynes's A Christmas Song for Tormented Souls : /p>

Patrick Hynes' lovely elegy to the Pogues' "A Fairytale of New York" reminded me all over again what a cinematic experience that song really was. Anyone who believes it impossible for a brief piece of music to encapsulate a century and a half's worth of ethnic experience, with a full panoply of emotions, hasn't listened to this masterpiece. If you've taped the video (like me), prepare to be reminded all over again, in 4 minutes and 31 seconds, why tears aren't just for kids. And I don't have any Irish blood in me.

A small factual correction is in order. Kirsty MacColl left this world a week before Christmas in 2000, not 1994. She was on vacation, swimming off Cozumel Island, Mexico, near the Yucatan Peninsula. Out of seemingly nowhere, a boat in a clearly-marked swimmers-only area, virtually decapitated her right in front of her own two sons -- the offspring of her marriage to the great Steve Lillywhite, not coincidentally, the producer of "A Fairytale of New York." (Try living with that trauma for the rest of your life.) The driver of the boat, as it turns out, was not only reckless, but also rich and well connected. Lucky for him. Vicente Fox's Mexican government continuously has stonewalled pleas for justice from MacColl's family members in the half-decade since. Even the most diehard immigration/amnesty enthusiast might smell a rat here.

p>I know. It's the music that ultimately matters. And every time I replay the video or listen to the CD with that song, I think of the Irish, Shane and all the other Pogues. But most of all, I think of Kirsty, and how much we miss her. br> -- Carl F. Horowitz br> Ashburn, Virginia /p>

In general I agree with Patrick Hynes; no endurable Christmas songs have been written since the early 1960s, if then. I make an exception, though, for Emerson Lake and Palmer's "I Believe in Father Christmas." I suppose it is open to interpretation, but my reading of the lyrics is "WE are Father Christmas, so if you want a Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth, get off your fat rear, stop whining, and do something about it." The last couplet sums it up nicely; "Be it Heaven or Hell, the Christmas we get we deserve."

p>Exactly! br> --

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