The Surprising Inspiration for ‘Come On Eileen’ by Dexys Midnight Runners

‘200 Greatest 80s Rock Songs’ Book Excerpt

Frank Mastropolo

Universal I.S.

“Come On Eileen” was a monster hit for Dexys Midnight Runners in 1982, reaching №1 in the US and seven other countries. Singer Kevin Rowland told Spin that the band was on the verge of breaking up early that year.

“By about 1981, end of the year into ’82, a good few in the band were starting to give up on the dream. I’d said to them, ‘Look, guys, the first album did well. We’re going to write a new album that’s going to do well. It’s going to be great.’

“Some of them weren’t getting paid too often. There was a bit of an atmosphere, quite a lot of an atmosphere. I was a very strict leader as well, too strict, I’m sure.

“I really felt under pressure. The last couple of singles hadn’t really set the world alight. We weren’t flavor of the month with the record label.”

“Come On Eileen” was written by Rowland and trombonist Big Jim Patterson. After a heated rehearsal session, Patterson quit the band and performed on the record as a session player.

“I just didn’t understand why anybody would want a life outside of the band,” said Rowland. “Jim wanted to go home and see his girlfriend. Invariably, I’d say, ‘Jim, come on. Let’s go and write this evening,’ after rehearsing all day.

“We had a draft of ’Eileen.’ I always felt nervous bringing a song to rehearsal to show the band because you never know. You feel it’s good but you think it could be rubbish and they’re going to laugh at you or they’re going to say, ‘That’s crap. I’m not playing that’ or whatever.

“This day was a particularly tense day, the day we brought ‘Eileen’ in. I was showing the band, showing them the chords, and Jim was showing the brass guys what to play and stuff. I was getting everyone doing the backing vocals. We didn’t have the words for the bit that goes ’Come on Eileen, ta-loo-rye-a.’ I was getting the guys to sing ’bap bap bap bap ba ra ra ra, bap bap,’ just to give an idea.

“I could just feel the tension in the room. Whereas when they had joined a year, 18 months earlier, they’re all listening to me, ‘Oh, yes, Kevin, what do you want to do?’ Now they weren’t listening to me. They were just pissed off, no money, working hard.

“I was showing Brian, one guy, the alto sax player, this bit to sing. The rest of the band, the other six were watching this. There was a bit of this play-acting going on between me and him.

“I was trying to encourage him to sing and I said, ‘No, no. It’s not so soft, it should be more of a chant, like a chant. Can you do it like a chant?’ He went, ‘I know what it is, but I don’t like it.’

“I suppose I was quite crestfallen in front of all the band, they’re watching. I snapped. You know what I mean? I was under pressure and I snapped. I was, ‘Well, if you don’t like it, fuck off,’ which was out of order of course, but that’s what I said.

“Jim says to me ‘You can’t talk to him like that. If he’s going, I’m going,’ and Jim walked out [laughs]. He didn’t come back and neither did Brian. They came back and played on the album as session players which we’ll pay them as session players, but that’s what happened.

“Billy Adams, who was a guitar player in the band, he helped me finish it. We finished it off and as we were writing it, I did feel this could be a really good one.

“We never tried to write for a hit, but we always tried to write as good as possible. To me commercial just means that people like it, so we never had to make a choice. In the end, it almost wrote itself.”

Rowland told the Daily Mail that his religious upbringing inspired the song. “Eileen was a composite of Irish Catholic girls that I grew up with. The one thing you weren’t supposed to do when you reached puberty was go with the Irish Catholic girls.

“You were supposed to go with the English girls because they were ‘sluts.’ That’s how it was. These are the good ones — these are the ones you marry.”

In 2022, Rowland remixed “Come On Eileen” and produced a new video.

Frank Mastropolo is the author of the new eBook 200 Greatest 80s Rock Songs, part of the Greatest Performances series. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.