Songoftheday 11/11/12 - Poor old Johnnie Ray sounded sad upon the radio...

Dexy's Midnight Runners - "Come On Eileen"
from the album Too-Rye-Ay (1982)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the top-40: 14

Today's Song of the Day is by the English band Dexy's Midnight Runners, who came together in the late 70s under the leadership of singer Kevin Rowland, and named themselves after a drug that's part of the anti-psychosis medicine Adderall. Their first single, "Dance Stance", scraped the bottom of the British top-40 in 1979, and set the stage for their upcoming debut album. That record, Searching For the Young Soul Rebels, produced their biggest hit in their homeland, "Geno", which topped the pop charts there in 1980.

However, after Rowland's fighting with the other members of the original band, they quit, leaving him to reassemble a new outfit in time for the second album, Too-Rye-Ay. The band completely changed their fashion style from new wave punks to now overall-clad Celtic hillbillies, and the violin-led shanty song "Come On Eileen" kicked things off for the group in America...

The single became their second #1 hit in the UK, while also topping the charts in Australia, Ireland and America, while the album made the top-20 as well in the States.

After the second single in the US, "The Celtic Soul Brothers" was only a minor hit, more members left the group, and Rowland starting changing images again for subsequent albums, adopting a swanky dressed up style. Rowland broke the Runners up in 1986, and started releasing even more out-there records, even donning drag on My Beauty in 1993. He reformed the band this year, and placed in the top-20 on the albums chart even without a hit single.

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The alt-rock group Save Ferris had a top-40 modern rock hit with their ska-ed up take on the song that predated No Doubt by a mile...

 
Badly Drawn Boy also did a rollicking cover of the song in 2002..

In 2004, British act 4-4-2 recorded a version of the song as "Come On England" to promote the national team at the Euro championships, and had a #2 hit in the UK with it...

Finally, in 2007 French art-rock outfit Nouvelle Vague did a moody "Come On Eileen"...

Up tomorrow: A British group's sort of female.