Dexys Midnight Runners- Don’t Stand Me Down

Of all the adjectives that one would expect to use to describe Dexys, the last might be “understated” and “contemplative",” and yet here we are. This was Dexys last album before they broke up. It was also the most difficult to record. Kevin Rowland wanted to create an Album, the studio and Dexys’ audience wanted singles like “Come on Eileen.” What they got instead was a twelve minute song where Kevin Rowland fails to describe “what she’s like” in words, opting for warbling instead. And that was the single. Needless to say, this album would have been nearly impossible to market. It was only with the reissue of the album in the nineties that people started to see the artistic merit of this strange album. And there is merit here. A lot of it.

The album is a meditation on beauty in the modern era. Rowland declares “It all sounds the same!” That twelve minute song I mentioned is just as much about the inadequacy of ordinary language to describe true beauty as it is an alternate version “Summer Lovin’”. Rowland refuses to “Tell me more, tell me more” because the woman he’s describing can’t be told. Like with the previous album Rowland is trying to create something precious and pure, but knows that striving for that is more important that actually achieving it. And like that last album, the results speak for themselves.

4/5 This is a strange album, but it isn’t inaccessible. An average listener could jump in and know where they are, but knowing where Dexys came from makes the experience much more rewarding. Otherwise the unprepared listener might walk away confused. And that’s what gives this album a strange place in Dexys discography. If I had to rank the albums, I’d put this one last, not because of it’s quality but just because it’s a bit more work to understand.

Food for thought: In a song called “Knowledge of Beauty” Rowland returns to his roots in order to find something “closer to the truth.” He goes so far as to say that “My national pride is a personal pride.” Now, I love learning about my ancestors but I have trouble drawing a connection between that and beauty. Perhaps by knowing where we came from we get closer to something older and bigger than ourselves, and we know that we are just a link in a chain going back farther than we know. That might give us some perspective and the confidence to keep going forward. Like I say, food for thought.