It's tough not to be annoyed right from the start, seeing PF500 stick this song in there. I'd be OK with PF500 including Come on Eileen. I'd be OK with PF500 not including Come On Eileen. But knowing nothing about this band other than that song, I still pretty much know that Dexy's Midnight Runners very likely do not have a song better than Come on Eileen.
So maybe I approached it with an overly skeptical ear. But to these ears, There There My Dear is a sloppy voiced overly-horn heavy (and it's tough to get that verdict from a brass-lover like me) song, where the lead singer needlessly trills his R's about 18 times in the span of 3 minutes.
Wikipedia explains that the band's lead, Kevin Rowland, was such an ass that all the bandmembers quit shortly after this song became a hit. Rowland replaced the band and made them all work out and run together and banned pre-show alcohol.
Mr. Kevin Rowland: YOU are not rock and roll.
RATING: 40.
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Group workouts and runs? Actually, Kevin Rowland seems like a pretty cool guy.
ReplyDeleteThe music for "There, There My Dear" was not written by Kevin Rowland, but by the marvelous Kevin Archer, who's playing guitar (and doing the trilling). Kevin Rowland is responsible, of course, for the convicted delivery of obtuse non-sequitur musings, but such vulnerability is to be valued rather than scorned. And, although it comes off as a bit mild, there is real tension beneath the song's surface. Kevin Archer went on to the Blue Ox Babes, whose experiments and discoveries with Celtic instrumentation were appopriated by Rowland, thereby: 1) rescuing Dexys from a fate of sweatpants, anoraks, and tiny ponytails by way of "Come On Eileen;
ReplyDelete2) banishing the Blue Ox Babes and Kevin Archer to unmitigated obscurity;
3) priming us for a world in which unsettling changes occur unpredictably and utterly without consent.