64. Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners

"Come On Eileen" by Dexys Midnight Runners

Written by Kevin Rowland, Jim Paterson, Billy Adams
Produced by Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley
Released on Too-Rye-Ay (July 1982)
Released as a single June 25, 1982
Peaked at #1 on Billboard Hot 100
amazon spotify iTunes

I think I was 26 the first time I had to confront the idea of getting old. What were those circumstances and how do they relate to this song? Allow me to set the stage.

I knew during my final year in college that even though I was graduating with a degree in education, I was not ready to immediately jump into the classroom as a full time teacher. So instead of spending my final semester searching and applying for teaching positions, I arranged to work at one camp during the summer and another in the fall. My hope was that I could turn being a camp counselor into a year round thing for at least a few years before I figured out life, the universe, and everything.

So that's what I did. I continued to my summers in the Ozarks at the camp I had been attending for much of my youth. I then traveled to northern Michigan in the fall to work at another camp. It wasn't quite year round (the camp in Michigan had winter and spring camps as well, but there were significant gaps in between seasons), so the first couple of years, I would stay with my mom in St. Louis between seasons working at Sam's Club the first year, and as a substitute teacher the next year. I loved the camp work, but I was not making nearly enough money to get by, so after those first two years I decided to start focusing on finding a classroom teaching position.

That next fall, I was subbing almost everyday and starting to get to know some of the teachers in a couple of my local districts pretty well. In October, I essentially got two offers, one to take over for my old program director at the camp in Michigan, and the other was to be a full-time sub the rest of the year, putting me first in line to take over for a retiring teacher. I realized that I was not yet ready to give up the camp life, and the promotion would make it more financially viable, so I left my mom's apartment and moved to Michigan full-time (while still spending my summers in the Ozarks).

The next two and a half years were pretty awesome. I was making it work! But eventually all good things come to an end. It was starting to become evident that the only way to move up in the camp world was to move deeper into the office resulting in less time with the kids. More office work would also mean having to fundraise and ask donors for money. That didn't sound too fun; I'm not much of a salesman. So I decided to leave camp life behind and started applying for jobs in St. Louis.

Those camp years will always mean a great deal to me. Looking back, that version of myself felt a lot like peak-level Sam. I was really at my best working with the kids and running the staff in that environment. (Living in a National Lake Shore wasn't too bad either.)

So where does "Come On Eileen" play into this? Well, if you work as a camp counselor long enough, you start to work with your former campers. It's usually a cool experience, but it can lead to some awkwardness. As I got older, I was definitely feeling more disconnected from some of the younger staff, specifically at the summer camp in Missouri. I still enjoyed it, but most of my best friends had moved on with their lives.

At the summer camp, every session included a square dance followed by a "rock" dance. The rules for the rock dance were simple: the songs had to be clean and there were never any slow dances. The square dance was fun because at that point I was usually calling the dance. We did the "Virginia Reel," "Take a Little Peek," and "Nine Pin." We'd throw "Bingo" in the middle as a mixer, and in between the square and rock portions we would do the "Chicken Dance."

It should be noted that I can probably still call those dances to this day, so if anyone reading this wants to have a little square dance sometime, let me know!

So, after calling the square dance, and doing a little chicken dance action, my job as a counselor shifted to trying to encourage our less enthusiastic campers to try to have a little fun out on the dance floor. Like most middle school dances, circles would often form, and individuals would be cajoled into showing off some moves to their friends. It was cheesy and lame and, while not my favorite part of my job, it was still part of the job.

Well, at one point I was trying to dance (it doesn't feel right to call what I do on the dance floor dancing) with some of the other counselors and campers, and the counselor in charge of the music put on "Come On Eileen." While it might not be the most appropriate song for a camp dance if you really study the lyrics, it's still a super fun song with a good beat. I got super excited because this is one of my favorite songs from my youth. It's kind of cheesy and odd and poppy and not really a good representative of my overall musical tastes, but ultimately it's a song that I will always love because it makes me feel good anytime I hear it. (I could probably describe "Walking On Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves the same way.)

So there I was at this silly camp dance getting all hyped over this song when one of my former campers who was now a junior counselor leans over to me and says, "I have no idea what this song is."

I had no idea how to respond. How could she have never heard this song before?

Well, she was probably about 8 years younger than me, and by the time she was listening to pop radio and watching MTV, most of the world had moved on from Dexys Midnight Runners' singular US hit. That was probably one of the first times in my life that I really thought of myself as being old. Sure I was only 25 or 26, but the fact that someone younger than me had never heard a song that practically everyone my age knew very well was a gut punch.

Music is both tribal and generational. Music from a particular time and place will quite literally get lost in the shuffle as people get older and new music finds its way into the hearts and ears of the next generation of young people.  Yes, there are songs that do cross generational and tribal lines, but those generally are exceptions, not the rule. I love a lot of music that is older than me, but there are also a lot of wildly popular songs from bygone eras that sound terrible to me. Even though I know how segmented musical tastes are, I still sometimes feel surprised when great music is not universally loved.

No song is loved by everyone. There never will be that perfect universally loved melody. There are too many backgrounds, opinions, and experiences that define every individual's musical tastes. There are also people who simply don't care about music. I'm not sure how that's possible, but it is.

Even acknowledging all of that, I find it strange to think that people exist who don't like "Jamming" by Bob Marley or "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson or "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes or "Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks or "Crazy" by Patsy Cline or "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones or "Where the Streets Have No Name" by U2 or "Stardust" by Hoagy Carmichael or "Take Five" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet or "Changes" by 2Pac or "Nuthin But a 'G' Thang" by Dr. Dre or Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or Dvorak's New World Symphony or any other piece of transcendently beautiful music that exists in this world. Everyone in my tribe or my generation may love some of these songs and compositions, but eventually people and music and life move forward with or without you.

I cannot pretend that "Come On Eileen" should be universally loved. It's just the song that first taught me about the generational nature of music. And even though it is now forever tied to this moment that when I recognized my own sense of age and mortality, that's not enough to make me forget how much I love this song.

Right now, "Come On Eileen" by Dexys Midnight Runners is (probably) my 64th favorite song of all time.