Freakytrigger has been quiet over the last few days. This can pretty much be put down to the marriage of our main technical support and indispensable chief Admin bloke Alan Trewartha and his stunning bride Emma Hamilton. This means that the site will probably fall over within days of them being on honeymoon, but more importantly meant that most of the Freakytrigger writers have spent the last few days worrying about speeches (and/or heckles) and being overcome by bouze and bonhomie. We even ignored the second attack of Banksy in a week.
What has any of this got to do with Come On Eileen? Well, at the wedding on Sunday I was witness to a number of rituals whose birth are now shrouded in mystery and significance obscured. Brides side / groom side? Bridesmaids? The cutting of the cake? The wedding breakfast? All the blokes do speeches, all the ladies don’t. What I am trying to say is that traditions are often self perpetuating, and stem from something which may have had a point somewhere back in time, but no longer have any direct significance.
I don’t know at whose wedding Come On Eileen was played first. One assumes, since it was a pretty big number one, it would have been pretty much around the time it was released. Nevertheless, and me and my fellow occasional wedding DJ’s hold this as a truism, YOU ARE NOT MARRIED UNTIL SOMEONE PLAYS COME ON EILEEN. This has the happy knock on effect in my opinion of relegating other entertainment options such as Cedilah to just a proportion of the evening. Perhaps the success of Come On Eileen as an all family stomp along is the fiddles and how it invokes a Cedilah without any of those tedious step-learnings. It builds to a crescendo, the bride whirls round in her dress and people of all ages gurn with delight. Perhaps Come On Eileen became an albatross around the necks of Dexy’s, a world striding, dungaree wearing colossus of a party tune. But no other band can honestly say they have become part of the tradition of the British marriage ceremony.
And congratulations yet again to Emma and Alan!