drunk tank

The book does open with you in the drunk tank in Van Nuys.

“Fairytale of New York” flips this notion on its head by celebrating star-crossed lovers, gamblers and bums in a drunk tank — all the misfits who are searching for a family of their own on Christmas Eve.

The Pogues’ most famous song, “Fairytale of New York” is a bittersweet Christmas classic that opens with the decidedly unfestive words: “It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank.”

“We’re not talking the drunk tank here,” he wrote in “Long Time Gone.”

For example, a bright tone of pink known as either “Baker-Miller Pink” or “Drunk Tank Pink” has been touted for decades as having a calming effect on prisoners or psychiatric patients.