Despite the timeless foot-stomping ubiquity of the monumental ‘Come On Eileen’, and the fact that nobody has worn faded denim dungarees as a fashion statement for yonks, it’s still hard to believe that it’s been more than a quarter-century since Dexy’s Midnight Runners last released a record. Reported at the time as being one of the most expensive albums ever made, 1985’s Don’t Stand Me Down – their third album and the follow-up to their now classic 1983 megahit offering Too-Rye-Ay – failed to do the business and, in between various sackings, resignations and internecine disputes, that seemed to be pretty much it for the erstwhile young soul rebels.
Two Kevin Rowland solo albums followed in extremely slow succession – 1988’s The Wanderer and 1999’s My Beauty – but both flopped commercially (the latter largely as a result of its notorious cover featuring the singer wearing make-up, black panties and suspenders). Although the band reunited in 2003 for a Greatest Hits tour, few would have predicted a serious attempt at any artistic comeback. But 27 years on from Don’t Stand Me Down, here’s Dexys (no more Midnight Runners) again, with the grandly titled Antony Hegarty-esque One Day I’m Going To Soar.
Featuring original members Rowland, Mick Talbot, Pete Williams and Jim Paterson, alongside new recruits Ben Trigg, Neil Hubbard, Tim Cansfield, Madeline Hyland and Lucy Morgan, the good news is that Dexys 2012 are an outstanding proposition musically. When they’re not funking it up, they’re soulfully grooving. Throughout ODIGTS, they’re always tight.
One Day I’m Going To Soar is a concept album of sorts. Kevin Rowland sets out his stall on album opener ‘Now’, which embellishes the bird metaphor of the title. “I know that I’ve been crazy,” he confesses, “That cannot be denied/ But inside of me there’s always been/ A secret urge for flight.”
This is followed by ‘Lost’, an anguished and occasionally impassioned ballad about Rowland’s youthful dreams and how he never fit in with his childhood contemporaries: “I was so lost/ I was lost inside/ But I tried to hide it from the world/ And all of my family/ I could not exist in the world/ Like there was something wrong with me.”
What quickly becomes clear is that the album’s concept is intimately connected to Kevin Rowland himself: the eleven confessional tracks of One Day I’m Going To Soar see the 59-year-old pick over various aspects of his life, loves and career with a heart-on-sleeve introspection that’s so stark it’s almost painful to listen to at times. Which isn’t to say that there’s no humour here. The middle section of the album deals with Rowland’s thoughts on love and romance. Although the avowed intention is to explore “the darkest part of the loneliness of a torn and troubled man” (‘Thinking Of You’), a light and playful attitude to relationships is equally in evidence on a track like ‘Incapable Of Love’ – which ends with a spoken-word conversation with Hyland.
While the songs can sometimes seem hit and miss, there is an impressive rawness and honesty throughout. “Take your Irish stereotype and shove it up your arse,” Rowlands snarls on ‘Nowhere Is Home’, “I want to be the man of my dreams/ I will become free.”
Thankfully, the record bears testimony to the fact that he has come to terms with his own idiosyncracies, as he admits in the monologue on the rueful album closer ‘It’s OK John Joe’: “I don’t show much of myself in person,” he says, “but in my music I put it all in there/ it’s like I’ve got a need to get it all out of me.”
Which, in a sense, is what the album is about. The listener is left in no doubt that Kevin Rowland sees this as his definitive artistic statement. While nowhere does One Day I’m Going To Soar hit the giddy euphoric heights of 1982, that is hardly the ambition. Rather this is a deeply personal statement about one man’s struggle for self-realisation through music. Painfully honest and awkward as it may be on occasion, it is well worth hearing.