FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

One-Hit Wondering - Dexys Midnight Runners

Welcome to my new column, where I listen to entire discographies of so-called "One-Hit Wonders." First up, Dexys Midnight Runners, AKA, that band that wrote "Come On Eileen."

Hi! Welcome to my new column, One-Hit Wondering. I’ll be choosing a different one-hit wonder band every week and listen to all their songs—or at least a good handful of them—to give these artists a chance to redeem themselves.

Why would I do this to myself? Because, I don't think anyone

aspires

to be a one-hit wonder. Sure, bands may write one distractingly catchy song that diverts attention from all the others, but maybe those other ones are pretty noteworthy themselves. I want to find out! It’s very possible that I stumble upon bands that are more blunders than wonders from time to time, but hey, I won’t know until I listen, right? And anyway, you can rely on my *expert* taste in music to determine whether or not you should even bother listening to more.

Advertisement

I was inspired to write this column when I recently made a completely random and pretty unambitious goal for myself: I wanted to listen to all the

Dexys Midnight Runners

songs that weren't "Come On Eileen." I don’t know, it seemed like an important task at the time, and truthfully, I'm glad I did it. But seriously, does anyone even know that band by anything other than this popular bar stomper? Sometimes, when I mention "Dexys Midnight Runners," it takes people a good second to realize what the hell I'm talking about until I’m like, "uhh, that ‘Come On Eileen’ band.” Seems kind of unfair, to be honest.

"Come On Eileen"—

an immortal hit, methinks.

Despite having chanted “too rye ay!” on countless occasions, I didn’t know much about Dexys at all, so I decided to start with the very album that housed the band’s singular hit, an album named after that trademark chant. My first listen of 1982's Too-Rye-Ay made me go "oh no" but that eventually evolved into "hey, this is pretty good" on the next few listens and after the millionth, I think I can now say I actually like it. A couple tracks were standouts from the get-go, like “Old,” which is one of the more toned down tracks of the album as far as the bar camaraderie goes, but I think the album's overall chummy-at-the-pub vibe turned me off initially. You can already hear it on "Come On Eileen" but it's prominent in a lot of the other tracks, like “Celtic Soul Brothers,” which is actually a really great song but man, those instrumental bits in the intro and at various breaks throughout are not exactly my cup of tea.

Advertisement

"Celtic Soul Brothers"—wouldn't it be better if the Celtic soul part was toned down? (Sorry, DMR.)

Where I should have started with this exploration is their debut album Searching for the Young Soul Rebels (oh my God, I just wrote Searching for the Funk Soul Brother and had to go back and edit it), which put them on the UK charts in 1980 with “Geno.” This first single has that same catchy, sing-along quality of “Eileen,” but I have the same problem with it as I do with “Celtic Soul Brothers”—the intro makes me feel like I'm in an Irish pub chugging ales with European football bros (ehem, fùtbol). These are things I will have to overlook, I guess, because they are, in essence, the products of excellent pop writing.

Despite the chummy appearance and jolly pop hooks, Kevin Rowland and his band mates were actually pretty badass and gave nary a fuck about anything. To be fair, though, you kind of can’t give a fuck when you’re grown-ass men running around in dungarees.

"Burn It Down"

Dexys song intros seemed to have made quite an impression on me during this intensive listening session (mostly bad impressions), but none did as boldly or positively as the album opener to their debut. “Burn It Down” starts off with the switching of radio channels, giving us a quick taste of some of the popular bands at the time (notably the Sex Pistols) before Rowland shouts, “Jimmy! For God’s sake, burn it down!” cueing the radio to shut off. Fun fact: Rowland and Kevin "Al" Archer of the band had previously been in the punk band the Killjoys before forming Dexys and released an album titled Johnny Won't Get to Heaven in 1977, referring to the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten. That was the kind of statement Dexys made on their very first track of their very first album. Way to kick things off with a bang. The album not only made its own socioeconomic class commentary but it seemed to be making commentary on commentary, which made me wonder: were these overall-clad, horn-tooting Brits actually punker than punk?

I can imagine front man Kevin Rowland would have been quite a nightmare to get along with. He notoriously shunned the press and refused to release singles by the end of their run, which eventually led to a breakup soon after their "Eileen"/Too-Rye-Ay follow-up, Don't Stand Me Down. The 1985 album —even from the cover alone —showed that the band abandoned their donkey jackets and dungarees for a much cleaner look of suits and ties. It was an aesthetic indicator to mark the end of their Too-Rye-Ay phase, which seems very abrupt to me because I am approaching this only minutes after listening to their previous releases but probably felt a lot more natural to them after their three-year hiatus. On Don't Stand Me Down, I can hear the comedown and frustration following the fame of having made an insanely popular chart-topper. This backlash can be heard in songs like "One of Those Things," in which Rowland belts "it all sounds the same!" or in "This Is What She's Like" (which is one of my favorites from the entire discography), a 12 minute 23 seconds-long track that is basically Rowland telling the world "fuck singles" in the form of a love song. What a punk.

"This Is What She's Like," which also has a shorter version that is a third of the length of this original.

After a week of endless listening and deep exploration of Dexys Midnight Runners, one thing's for sure: no one can ever give me shit for only knowing the band by "Come On Eileen." But more importantly, these guys deserve listening beyond this overplayed wedding favorite. Perhaps the front man's lack of enthusiasm for singles and their short-lived band life caused an accidentally self-inflicted dubbing of their "one-hit wonder" status, but listen carefully and you'll find hit after hit after hit with these chaps.

@kristenyoonsoo