There, There, My Dear
"There, There, My Dear" | ||||
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Single by Dexys Midnight Runners | ||||
from the album Searching for the Young Soul Rebels | ||||
B-side | "The Horse" | |||
Released | June 1980 | |||
Recorded | April 1980 | |||
Studio | Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 3:10 | |||
Label | Late Night Feelings/EMI | |||
Songwriter(s) | ||||
Producer(s) | Pete Wingfield | |||
Dexys Midnight Runners singles chronology | ||||
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"There, There, My Dear" is a song by English pop band
Lyrics
The song is an
The tile of the band's debut album was inspired by the lyrics "I've been searching for the young soul rebels". The writer is saying that amidst the discord of the music scene, with the likes of post-punk, ska, pop, disco, the writer wants to find harmony and integrity in all of this and Robin is someone who only likes what is cool and popular at that moment.[2] On later releases of the album, the song ends with Rowland singing unaccompanied the chorus of the 1969 Lee Dorsey song "Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky (From Now On)".[4]
Kevin Rowland later explained that "It's an angry song. In the lyrics, I'm addressing 'Robin,' but he was the personification of a certain type of middle-class musician in NME, quoting Kerouac and Burroughs and all these authors I'd never read.""[4]
In the liner notes of Searching for the Young Soul Rebels, the song title is followed by the line "P.S. Old clothes do not make a tortured artist".[4]
Reception
Reviewing the song for Smash Hits, David Hepworth wrote "Dexy's go out on a limb with their crucial follow up, Kevin Rowland delivering the vocal from the very lip of chaos while the horns dig in and hold the rhythm down". The song "pays no attention to any kind of form and just weaves all over the shop; the only real hook is the way he rrrrolls his rrrrrs every now and again".[5] Reviewing retrospectively for Freaky Trigger, Peter Baran wrote "Attacking pretension whilst being fantastically pretentious, looking for a new music by aping a type of soul which had drifted out. All of which is made palatable by this overwhelming force of personality and energetic drive that runs through There, There, My Dear".[6] Stewart Mason for AllMusic wrote "The follow-up to the UK number one single "Geno," "There, There, My Dear" is an even better song, perhaps the best of Dexy's Midnight Runners' entire career", describing it as "even catchier and more soulful" and that "it's the lyrics that make the song".[7]
B-side
The
Charts
Chart (1980) | Peak position |
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7 |
References
- ^ a b "Dexys Midnight Runner: Artist Chart History". Official Charts Company.
- ^ a b Dexys Midnight Runners โ There There My Dear, retrieved 2020-11-17
- ^ "Dexys Midnight Runners". www.tangents.co.uk. 2001. Retrieved 2020-11-17.
- ^ a b c "There, There My Dear by Dexys Midnight Runners". www.songfacts.com. Retrieved 2020-11-17.
- ^ "Singles". Smash Hits. 10โ23 July 1980. p. 30. Retrieved 17 November 2020 – via sites.google.com.
- ^ Baran, Pete (September 2011). "The FT Top 100 Songs of All Time #8: Dexy's Midnight Runners โ There, There, My Dear | FreakyTrigger". Freaky Trigger. Retrieved 2020-11-17.
- ^ Mason, Stewart. "There, There, My Dear - Dexys Midnight Runners | Song Info | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 2020-11-17.
- ^ Becker, Jordan (2013-09-11). "In Defense: Dexys Midnight Runners". Cover Me. Retrieved 2020-11-17.
- ^ "DEXYS A-Z". www.dexys.org. Retrieved 2020-11-17.