Too-Rye-Ay, as it should have sounded

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Since 1982 there have been a few different versions of the record. In 1996 it featured eight bonus songs, and in 2007, when a 25 year anniversary record was released, it included a 14-song live performance at the BBC. ‘Come On Eileen’ itself exists in many versions, some feature the solo fiddle playing the first line of the folk song ‘Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms’, and some begin with that inimitable bassline. Even the fact that these versions exist suggest Rowland couldn’t let it go. “The songs and performances are great, but I always felt the mixes could be better. It's my most successful album, but it doesn't sound as good as the others,” he told Retro Pop magazine.

Rowland is determined to reconcile with his past – “Come On Eileen” included. “I’m grateful for it,” he says. “It did become bigger than the band, and that was frustrating. But it doesn’t matter now.” She was really good when it came to correcting the balance of the strings on stuff like Liars A To E, turning the organ down so that the violins came to life more. Basically, she helped rectify my mistakes. After “Come On Eileen” made him a star, Rowland initially enjoyed himself. “It chilled us out. We couldn’t have been like we were in 1980”. But the novelty soon wore off. “Being a well-known person was too intense. I discovered it’s another job in itself”. He stayed in Birmingham, which he says was a mistake: he was recognised everywhere. I even felt fraudulent promoting the album, because I knew it didn’t sound as good as it should have. None of this would matter if the songwriting wasn’t there, of course. You can’t blame Langer & Winstanley – producers of so many classic singles – for thinking Too-Rye-Ay wasn’t already good enough. Any album containing the incendiary Plan B and beautiful Let’s Make This Precious is onto a winner.A project like this can resemble a conjuring of a central spirit, and a kind of rejoindering. And while it is fair to say that Rowland and Dexys can never be accused of being complacent, they have always been “searching for something” (to borrow from ‘Plan B’).

For example, Birmingham’s biggest radio station, BRMB apologized after they played ‘Come On Eileen’ for the first time,” Rowland adds. “They said they hoped it didn’t cause offense to anybody, because there had only just been an IRA bomb gone off in London the day before. We had all that to contend with, so I felt I almost had to sneak a bit of Irish culture in. I certainly didn’t want to go all out on playing Irish folk, but it was good to bring a little into our sound. Obviously, Eileen’s an Irish name, and the song was all about growing up with Irish girls, really.” The record’s success The record’s co-producers] Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley were very successful at the time, they’d had a lot of hits with bands like Madness, so what they said mattered. They had the final say in how Too-Rye-Ay originally sounded,” Rowland says today.

Staunton, Terry (November 2007). "Dexys Midnight Runners – Too Rye Ay". Record Collector (342) . Retrieved 15 June 2016. And of course, the irony was, it was by far our most successful Dexys album, because of the worldwide success of ‘Come On Eileen’. The Quietus - Features - Reissue Of The Week - Reissue Of The Week: Dexys' Too-Rye-Ay, As It Should Have Sounded". The Quietus . Retrieved 19 October 2022. So Rowland is – literally – correcting the record. Too-Rye-Ay, As It Should Have Sounded remixes the original recordings to present a more organic, purer version of the album’s string-led Celtic-soul sound. It’s not a radical overhaul – “one or two people said to me they can’t hear any difference”, he says, the inverse of his problem in 1982 when many didn’t hear much wrong with the original. Rather, it’s a subtle and nuanced refreshing that brings increased clarity and depth, Rowland’s impassioned vocals – a classic soul singer’s take on Bryan Ferry’s affectations – noticeably cleaner and clearer. “We’re not trying to make it sound ‘2022’. We’re still being true to what it was, letting the music speak for itself.” This speaks to something more philosophical, more fundamental – is anything ever truly finished? Is a song ever really finite? Having had forty years to muse on it, surely Too-Rye-Ay As It Should Have Sounded is the definitive statement of Rowland’s and Dexys’ original vision?

Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th conciseed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8.Top Selling Albums of 1982 — The Official New Zealand Music Chart". Recorded Music New Zealand . Retrieved 1 February 2022. The album’s cover has also been re-modelled, using the preferred image from the “Come On Eileen” single sleeve. Listened to on a phone, the new arrangements by Helen O’Hara and long-time Dexys producer Pete Schwier aren’t so different from the original mix by Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley which has troubled Kevin Rowland so much for 40 years. Charts.nz – Kevin Rowland & Dexys Midnight Runners – Too-Rye-Ay". Hung Medien. Retrieved 1 February 2022. We regret to inform you that the Dexys show at The London Palladium on …. is no longer going ahead.

All the songs on the album were rearranged to add strings, which caused Dexys to re-record the 1981 singles "Plan B", "Liars A to E", and "Soon". During the rearrangement process, "Soon" was revised into the opening section of "Plan B"; since both songs were written by Rowland and Paterson, the merged songs are credited on the album simply as "Plan B".Dutchcharts.nl – Kevin Rowland & Dexys Midnight Runners – Too-Rye-Ay" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 1 February 2022. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge. Producer Pete Schwier adds: “All the material on the remix is from the original recordings, nothing new has been added. Some of the arrangements were changed, for example: on “Plan B” we moved the brass to come in earlier and the ‘girl’ talking was replaced with Kevin’s, which he recorded at the time.