Shane McGowan says the inclusion of the word 'faggot' in the Christmas classic Fairytale of New York was not intended to offend.
A renewed debate surrounding the use of the word, which many find offensive to gay people, has begun as the song starts to be played in the run up to Christmas.
There have been repeated calls for the slur to be censored from the song, or for the track to be banned completely from radio station playlists.
Shane, who wrote the song in 1987, explained that the word "was used by the character because it fitted with the way she would speak".
"She is not supposed to be a nice person, or even a wholesome person. She is a woman of a certain generation at a certain time in history and she is down on her luck and desperate", he told Virgin Media TV.
The Pogues front-man pointed out that the characters which appear in songs or stories are not always “angels” and sometimes it is necessary to make them “evil or nasty” so a story can be told effectively.
McGowan said he is "absolutely fine" with the word being bleeped out if people "don’t understand that I was trying to accurately portray the character as authentically as possible".
However, he said "I don’t want to get into an argument".
