Month: February 2009

[17] Dexys Midnight Runners, ‘Show Me’

Dexys Midnight Runners

The great lost Dexys Mk II are greeted with a beam from Junior, and she really couldn’t have done anything else: ‘Show Me’ hares in on a brass-boosted dragster, all off-beat claps and parping trombones, crazed yelps and underpinning organ. It brims with adrenaline – and some under-the-counter stuff – and is tighter than your current mortgage lender.

Mk II then. Mild-mannered, democratic frontman Kevin Rowland had kicked half of the peerless Soul Rebels line-up into touch, returning a year later as boxers not dockers. This is the collective that never made an album, but could have been the best. Some of their singles had a gypsy-fiddle makeover to reappear on Too-Rye-Ay, although ‘Show Me’ only survived in counterpoint as ‘I’ll Show You’ – the point where that second album really begins to fly.

This benefits from its one-off single status – it emphasises its economy, conciseness, tightness. The brass is irresistible, reflected in Junior’s trombone mime, and the whole giddy rush keeps us smiling as we skid over the thaw.

[18] Duran Duran, ‘Girls On Film’

Duran Duran

You could hear this coming a mile off: must have been Simon Le Bon’s room-clearing tones, or John Taylor’s sinuous bass, or Nick Rhodes’ brassy synth stabs – or the glaring fact I’ve mentioned them twice in as many posts.

Andy Taylor’s guitar is very new-wave choppy, but the setting is pure New Romantic, quintessential ‘80s. While they may be callow youths straight outta Birmingham, nothing’s going to stop Duran Duran imagining themselves swamped with cash and supermodels – they’ve seen the future and it’s all “See ya later, impossibly unattainable glamorous lady”. And, by golly, that’s exactly what the future was.

It’s a bit gauche, what with Le Bon’s trademark nonsense – “The diving man’s coming up for air ‘cos the crowd all love pulling dolly by the hair” – and the schoolboy’s holy grail that is the Night Version video, but ‘Girls On Film’ is bold, punchy and fuelled by staying power. The world was being tastefully arranged on a plate for this band, and it was time, perhaps, for their own “gear” vocab like some Fab teen faves before them. Junior is here to oblige: she smartly declares the song “faiaiayson”, “wacks” and “coloration” while sporting an expression that dares me to tell her she’s coining new adjectives. Well, she is – and maybe they’re apt.