{"id":22098,"date":"2024-08-01T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=22098"},"modified":"2024-07-31T20:24:25","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T19:24:25","slug":"oh-come-on-eileen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2024\/08\/01\/oh-come-on-eileen\/","title":{"rendered":"OH, COME ON EILEEN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Norman Warwick introduced her with AN<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

OH, COME ON EILEEN (EARNSHAW)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inspired by Dexy\u00b4s Midnight Runners<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Picture yourself standing in the unemployment office. Times in the nineties had become tougher than my baby boomer generation might have expected  and even the stars of very recent op charts were queuing in the unemployment offices around the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a line, because of course there is. And as you stand there, waiting and waiting, you see some random guy looking at you. You don\u2019t know him, but he knows you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, retrieving a tune less than a decade old from his memory bank, he starts singing, expecting you<\/strong> to join in, \u201cCome on, Eileen. Oh, I swear\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You<\/strong> are Kevin Rowland and in the early \u201990s, this is your actual life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCome On Eileen\u201d was indeed inescapable for a time on its way to numerous \u201cHey! Remember the \u201980s?\u201d compilations and homemade mixtapes. It topped the U.S. charts in late April 1983, spending one week at the top in between Michael Jackson\u2019s hits \u201cBillie Jean\u201d and \u201cBeat It.\u201d It was the No. 1 single for all of 1982 in the UK, where it spent four weeks at the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The album that spawned it \u2014 Too-Rye-Ay \u2014 has just turned forty, There\u2019s more to it musically than just that one hit. There\u2019s also more behind the scenes drama to it, not as widely known at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember the song for several reasons. At the time of its release as a single it seemed to defy the timbre of the UK pop charts of the era. There was a wonderful folk\/country feel to the top of the pops performances delivered by the band with their violins, hand claps and soaring chorus. It was a feel good record and the band\u00b4s vocalist and leader was one of the most charismatic performers of his time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also remember the song because some time in the final decade of the twentieth century. I made friends with a fellow poet in my area and we would often bump into each other at slams or readings, or in the library which, like a dozen or so of Rochdale\u00b4s literati, we considered to be our office and, often, our stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eileen Earnshaw (right) <\/em><\/strong>was a mentor to many of us and was not only a great writer of some profound poetry but also worked tirelessly to perpetuate the legacy of Rochdale\u00b4s role in creating the co-operative movement. She still has a way of making arcane history interesting and relevant and still runs Riverside Writers, facilitating a creative writing group in Rochdale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u00b4t know if Eileen actually knew of Jack Lee who with his wife and daughter was the resident musical host at The Fisherman\u00b4s Inn beside Hollingworth Lake, but Eileen and Jack shared certain traits in their performance. Jack\u00b4s family band was known, by name and performance, as Haphazard. Jack would forget the name of a song as he introduced it, stumble over words and invent a new chorus half way through a song he\u00b4d been singing for forty years, could take forever tuning up and deliver rambling introductions that were longer than the song they introduced. He had an aw, shucks, grandpappy attitude that matched his silver haired, silver bearded appearance, but my God, the Haphazard performances of My Dixie Darlings was demanded by the audience at every gig, and has stayed with me forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was twenty years later that I met Eileen and fell in love with her poetry, that like Jack Lee\u00b4s music was presented in a somewhat shambolic manner. Carrying her poetry to the microphone she would invariably drop some of the loose leaf pages she was carrying, bend down and collect them up only to find they were now in the wrong order and that her first poem was tucked away somewhere in the middle of twenty odd pages, (only three of which she intended reading !)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her introductions were of the \u00b4this is a poem I wrote, oh I can\u00b4t remember when, and to honest I\u00b4m not sure what it\u00b4s about or why I wrote it, but see what you think,\u2026oh hell, where\u00b4s it gone?\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We loved her for this because we were prepared to forgive her anything for the wisdom of her words, the perfection of her poetry and for always leaving thoughts in our heads and hearts that would stay with us forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a period of a few years when Robin Parker, another Rochdale poet, and I were hosting the Bard From The Baum Sunday night poetry readings. Eileen, along with other local poets like Michael Higgins, Catherine Coward, Val Chapman and Seamus Kelly lent an elevated air to our events. However, as hosts, Robin and I knew we had to run the events to time. After an even lengthier preamble than usual I chivvied her up with a \u00b4come on, Eileen\u00b4 and Robin immediately followed with an oh come on Eileen in the style \u00a0of the Dexy\u00b4s hit of twenty years previously.\u00a0 Suddenly\u00a0 the whole room burst into the Too Rye Ay chant and the hand-clapped chorus of increasing urgency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legend was lite. From that night forward Eileen was always given that accompaniment as she walked slowly to the stage and gathered her thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In writing that precursor to the song we are about to discuss, it has suddenly dawned on me how clever Jack Lee and Eileen Earnshaw were being. They were like Les Dawson, playing the piano very badly but absolutely brilliantly. Or they were emulating Tommy Cooper putting the rabbit down the wrong hole but brilliantly always pulling it out of the right hat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, we have now reached the beginning of this article, so let\u2019s start with this corrective. Dexy\u00b4s Midnight Runners were not a one-hit wonder, at least not in the UK. Their debut album \u2014 1980\u2019s Searching for the Young Soul Rebels \u2014 reached No. 6 in the charts there with lead single \u201cGeno\u201d reaching No. 1 and follow-up \u201cThere, There, My Dear\u201d also reaching the top ten. Both hits were co-written by lead singer Kevin Rowland (lyrics) and guitarist Kevin Archer (music).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things should have been fine for the second album, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nope. Rowland had a tendency towards lording over every detail. Smarting from some criticism by music journalists of the debut, he imposed a press embargo. According to Archer, he needed to be called \u201cAl\u201d because somehow Rowland didn\u2019t want two Kevins in the band anymore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rowland\u2019s manner of dealing with things chased off most of the band. He told the Guardian in 2014, \u201cI take responsibility. I was far too controlling and aggressive. One day, five band members announced they wanted to go their own way, as Dexys, and get a different singer. At first I was relieved. All that stress just went. Then after a couple of days I thought: \u2018F*** that! It\u2019s my band name!\u2019 and started to get another band together around myself, Jim, and Kevin Archer. Then Kevin left, too, because he was disillusioned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dexys of 1980 was effectively now three bands, with Rowland and trombonist Big Jim Paterson remaining in the original band. Five members \u2014 bassist Pete Williams, saxophonists Geoff Blythe and Steve Spooner, drummer Andy \u201cStoker\u201d Growcott and keyboardist Mick Talbot \u2013 formed the Bureau. Then there were the Blue Ox Babes, led by Archer and also including former Dexy\u00b4s keyboardist Andy Leek<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latter began working on demos, expanding on the sound of Searching. \u201cI liked T.Rex but was also listening to a lot of western swing, and North American black music, spiritual and uplifting,\u201d Archer told Record Collector in 2009. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe listened to The Chieftains and Van Morrison and I got some Arabic music, where the violin sounded weird. We found some gypsy Romany music and Archer started listening to cajun. He used instruments such as the Jew\u2019s harp, melodica, mouth organs and, of course, the fiddle,\u201d Yasmin Saleh, who was a Blue Ox Babes member and Archer\u2019s girlfriend .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rowland and remaining band member Jim Paterson started writing new songs, releasing three singles in 1981. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The demo process for Blue Ox Babes, meanwhile, was going well. There was some confidence, but Archer sought the opinion of his former band-mate Rowland. \u201cI\u2019d had a great time recording the songs. It was a breeze,\u201d he told Record Collector. Everybody said, \u2018They\u2019re good.\u2019 But I needed to get another opinion. Rowland was my old song-writing partner so no harm, eh? I took a Walkman over to his house. And he said, \u2018I can\u2019t hear it that well, can I borrow the tape?\u2019 Then I never heard from him for about a year and, one day, I was in my flat with the group.  I happened to switch on the radio and \u2018Come On Eileen \u2018was on. I thought, \u2018We\u2019ve had it now.\u2019 I felt gutted. They\u2019d adopted a similar style to us.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a body blow to Archer\u2019s confidence that not even an offered record deal from Stiff could fix. The Blue Ox Babes would finally release a trio of singles in 1988, but the planned album was shelved, where it would stay until 2009 when Cherry Red released Apples & Oranges, which collected the singles and unreleased material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bureau, meanwhile, released a self-titled album (called Only In Sheep in Australia) and were disbanded by the time Too-Rye-Ay was released. Talbot would go on to have success as a founding member of The Style Council. Blythe would join the TKO Horns, which included Paterson, who\u2019d left Dexys during the recording of Too-Rye-Ay. The horn section would play with the likes of Elvis Costello, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The history of Dexys, its line-ups and the other projects its members have taken part in (and the artists they\u2019ve played with) could, if plotted out, start to resemble the Pepe Silvia meme from It\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rowland\u2019s views of what happened have shifted. He said in 1993, \u201cAfter Searching For The Young Soul Rebels, when (Archer) left, we were both experimenting with strings. I wasn\u2019t getting what I wanted: he found it and I stole it. As a result, he disbanded his group. Dexys had taken his sound and succeeded with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years later, he told the Guardian, \u201cAround 19 years ago I gave an interview about how I\u2019d stolen \u2018Come On Eileen\u2019 from Kevin Archer. Some of it was true. Most of it was me punishing myself. I was in a dark place and thought it had all been him and I had no talent. What actually happened was \u2026 he played me his demos and he was using a combination of a Tamla-style beat with violins, which I thought sounded better than what we were doing. So I nicked that style, and the idea of speeding up and slowing down. I didn\u2019t steal one note, one chord, one melody.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rowland, starting in the \u201990s, did sign over half the royalties for Too-Rye-Ay to Archer, a percentage substantially reduced some years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other addition from the Blue Ox Babes demos was one of the players, as violinist Helen Bevington (soon to be rechristened as Helen O\u2019Hara to sound more Irish \u2014 Rowland\u2019s idea) stood out to him. He\u2019d originally wanted to have the horn players play strings as well before deciding to add strings separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The horn players, who would be brought back to finish the sessions as hired hands, left due to a combination of reasons, including artistic ego, perhaps a bit of booze and, in Paterson\u2019s case, a desire to spend time with his new girlfriend Sandra. The latter reason more than paid off as they\u2019re still together, having married a few years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The album came out and everything appeared set, but then the first single, jaunty album opener \u201cThe Celtic Soul Brothers (More, Please, Thank You)\u201d failed to crack the UK Top 40. \u201cCome on Eileen \u201d appeared destined to meet the same fate, if not for one BBC Radio 1 DJ \u2014 David \u201cKid\u201d Jensen who\u2019d kept playing the song. It finally gained momentum which, boosted by a Top of the Pops appearance, vaulted the song up the charts. Buoyed by its video getting all over MTV, similar success followed here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Dexys would be one-hit wonders here, they kept going a bit longer on their home turf when the third single, a bouncy cover of Van Morrison\u2019s \u201cJackie Wilson Said (I\u2019m In Heaven When You Smile)\u201d, a classic from the years before Morrison became the living embodiment of The Simpsons\u2019 \u201cOld Man Yells at Cloud\u201d gag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it turned out, Dexys had created a solid album, rather than a few singles surrounded by filler. Rowland might have found inspiration in what the Blue Ox Babes were working on, but it\u2019s clear in retrospect that Too-Rye-Ay wasn\u2019t exactly a 180-degree turn from Searching for the Young Soul Rebels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rowland\u2019s loose, yowling yelping voice was the same. The old soul influence was still there. The Celtic folk influence, complete with the addition of the strings, was the change that pushed them over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it should be noted that Rowand\u2019s desire to add strings predated anyone else\u2019s demos, a desire that led to some of the departures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too-Rye-Ay isn\u2019t all uptempo party. The empathetic waltz of \u201cOld\u201d contrasts with the bitter anger of ballad \u201cLiars A to E\u201d. Meanwhile, the bittersweet \u201cAll and All (This One Last Wild Waltz)\u201d slows things down further with a relationship with an authority figure winding down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Celtic Soul Brothers\u201d, lyrically by Rowland about himself and Paterson (as well as the band as a whole) might have enjoyed a better fate had it not been the leadoff single. Someone else thought so, as it got a re-release in the spring of 1983 and reached No. 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s Make This Precious\u201d, with its bright horns and break with handclaps, carries over some of Searching\u2019s vibes, albeit with violins. The bounciness of \u201cI\u2019ll Show You\u201d belies its lyrics about how the line of emotionally abusive adult behavior towards children connects to problems in adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, fresh off working on albums from Madness and The Teardrop Explodes and soon to produce Elvis Costello and the Attractions, produced the album with Rowland. The duo took the lead (more on that in a bit) and put together a polished, but not slick, catching the vibe of a soulful band on a good night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take \u201cPlan B\u201d, a reworked version of a 1981 single, adding a quiet intro before bursting into brightness with a fuller-sounding version than the original.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s clear Rowland is a fan of his influences, even if he doesn\u2019t quite sing like them. His voice is an acquired taste at times,with the falsettos and various overwrought mannerisms threatening to go over-the-top at times. Still, he has an undeniable charisma and the band itself is a good support structure, tight enough to keep him tethered and loose enough to let him play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with all that it can be said about the rest of the album,\u00a0 \u201cCome On Eileen\u201d is Too-Rye-Ay\u2019s highlight, with its deft key changes and utterly undeniable chorus that will stick in the brain whether you want it to or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song was originally about some of Rowland\u2019s favourite singers \u2014 the chorus of \u201cJames, Stan and Me\u201d with Stan being an inside joke name for Van Morrison. \u201cWe\u2019d been outside the Birmingham Odeon in \u201978 and it said \u2018Van Morrison\u2019 in lights and some girl said: \u2018Oo is he? Never \u2019eard of him.\u2019 We went: \u2018Oh it\u2019s Stan Morrison. He\u2019s a comedian, they spelt it wrong,’\u201d Rowland told the Guardian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with Morrison\u2019s correct name, the song wouldn\u2019t last long in that incarnation, as Rowland reworked the lyrics to turn it into a tale of repressed Catholic teenage wooing, with Eileen being a composite of girls he knew in his younger years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a song about teen sex, there\u2019s an innocence to it (he says \u201cplease\u201d), a sort of Celtic \u201cGo All the Way\u201d, or perhaps a less creepy \u201cOnly the Good Die Young\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it all comes in a package where not only the chorus sticks, but there\u2019s also the part three-quarters of the way through designed for audience singalongs (\u201cCome on, Eileen, ta-loo-rye-aye\u201d). If the new wavy synths of the period were more influential, the folk-inflected soul of it is still pure \u201980s pop joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Even though Too-Rye-Ay would be the biggest hit in Dexys career, Rowland had his misgivings with its production, something he didn\u2019t feel he had the way to express while recording. Even though he appreciates the Langer\/Winstanley team, he felt the finished product was too poppy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI knew it was great to have the success that album had. At the same time, I felt it was a shame,\u201d he told Classic Pop earlier this year. \u201cI felt a bit fraudulent promoting Too-Rye-Ay, because I knew straight away it wasn\u2019t right. The best you can hope for when you finish an album is that it sounds as good as you can possibly get it at that moment. You feel right when you leave the studio, because you can\u2019t get it any better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rowland\u2019s response to Too-Rye-Ay\u2019s success was to not even attempt repeating it. At one point, the legendary Tom Dowd (whose credits included the likes of Aretha, Ray Charles, Coltrane, Rod Stewart, the Allman Brothers) was the producer, but those results were shelved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gone was the Celtic vagabond image, as the band, winnowed down to a quartet, appeared in yuppified businesswear on the cover of 1985\u2019s Don\u2019t Stand Me Down. Rowland, after a lengthy, over budget recording process was not only refusing to do press again, he was refusing to let the label release a single.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t Stand Me Down flopped. While time has definitely been kinder to Rowland\u2019s artistic ambitions, its commercial failure led to the band\u2019s breakup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d been too confident, too arrogant. I thought everyone would hear our new music and go: \u2018Wow,’\u201d Rowland said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019d increasingly turn to drugs (particularly cocaine), eventually going to rehab, as well as needing public assistance for a time when the money ran out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rowland\u2019s loose, yowling yelping voice was the same. The old soul influence was still there. The Celtic folk influence, complete with the addition of the strings, was the change that pushed them over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it should be noted that Rowland\u2019s desire to add strings predated anyone else\u2019s demos, a desire that led to some of the departures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And Rowland (second left in picture right)<\/em><\/strong>, now long sober, even found a way to enjoy his most successful creation, which has been a mainstay for DJs at events like wedding receptions. Many years after that low point in the unemployment line, he was in better surroundings in Brighton. As he told Classic Pop, \u201cI\u2019d just started dating a woman who worked at American Express, who were having their works do at a hotel on the seafront. Nobody knew I was there and\u2026 I didn\u2019t really dance, but I watched everyone else dance to it and that was good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Four decades later, the album that spawned it still is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nobody knew I was there and\u2026 I didn\u2019t really dance, but I watched everyone else dance to it and that was good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,68,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-and-tradition","category-dance","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22098"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22151,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22098\/revisions\/22151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}