I shunned the whole ‘Too-Rye-Aye’ album for years without really thinking about why although, as a good thing, it means I’ve been able to enjoy it almost as new again recently – one of my favourite private daydreams is the idea that I’m performing side two, I can feel the concert going on as I listen to it, knowing what a fantastic encore number I’m building up to and how everyone will go home happy.

Tom is right about how the ideal way to listen to Eileen is at the end of the album. You really feel as though you’ve earned the pleasure, and the sense of release is astonishing! I often think that the equivalent song (in that it runs the risk of seeming a bit over-familiar until you hear it as a climax of a wonderful album) is ‘Don’t You Want Me?’

Whereas Russ Abbot’s “Atmosphere” for instance has not survived, largely because the artist himself hates the record so much that he bought back the rights and has stubbornly refused to allow its reissue.

A very key reason for “Come On Eileen”’s success is that it could be directly connected to Dexy’s previous number one through the tactic of deliberate retrolinkage, i.e. the Johnnie Ray recollection works on the equivalent level to the Geno Washington one – a clink in the keyhole of non-obvious nostalgia, including the teenage 2-Tone/Mod types of 1980 like myself who were too young to experience Geno at his peak (I’ve heard the live albums but still feel I’m missing a vital element). So there was a hook for uncommitted/floating record buyers to hang onto; it was catchy on the “Geno” level but its arrangement and set-up varied enough not to make it sound like Geno 2, and although the handclap-provoking accelerando is used in “Geno” the architecture in “Eileen” is more clearly delineated and it was fairly clear that it was going to bag the bigger audience – even though it plays more than anything as a prequel to “Geno.”

Too-Rye-Ay devastated me at the time, even if a purist part of me (ha!) wished that the Projected Passion line-up had recorded it, and “Eileen” comes as the most substantial of emotional releases at the end…he’s dealt with his pantechnicon of emotional baggage, come out the other side and now he can love and live again. Hence the internal dialogues of “Until I Believe In My Soul,” “I’ll Show You” etc. are vital because the release of “Eileen” wouldn’t have been possible without this semi-privacy; nonetheless, the fact that people can enjoy the song alone without necessarily knowing the back story speaks volumes for the volume and skill with which Rowland communicates this release.

One of the major lessons I’ve learned from my six or so years of public music writing is that when your heart has been smashed, seemingly beyond repair, if only you can find it in yourself to drag yourself back to the radio, remember where the “ON” switch is and which way to push or turn it – or to your stereo, or whichever – and use the power it generates to regenerate yourself in the hope that your talking about this music and how it relates to yourself will help “those other people” to find you – and for me, eventually, one person was all it took – then the songs can be played and the new dance can begin.