Dexys Midnight Runners

Released: July 11, 1980

Songwriter: Kevin Archer Geoffrey Blythe

Producer: Pete Wingfield

The world lives in your front room
You're sitting happy in gloom
Fate worries you, you will not give her room
You give credit for might, inspiration and sight
But you miss the point
You won't join the fight
You think to use is to lose so your clinging, pulling pleading

Try and keep it safe
Keep it cozy but it feels so out of place
You're feeling a loss but youre not fit to make it
You offered so much but youre frightened to take it
It never was really proved, never was understood
But there really is no virtue in the good
The shoutings so loud that they'd do better to mime
You're deafened and you cannot hear the rhyme
But secrets in whispers pull you, try to tempt you

Try and keep it safe
Keep it cozy but it feels so out of place
You're feeling a loss but youre not fit to make it
You offered so much but youre frightened to take it
You beg for help and advice, how to handle your life
But you dare not move, you cannot pay the price
Chances slip, you just chatter, flatter, to forget what matters
Spout your lines, read all your books
You hear the sounds, miss all the hooks
Your best is what you least understand
You hate the graft, won't join the race
You're scared to scar your pretty face
Safe now cause your head is in the sand
Keep it

Dexys Midnight Runners (currently officially Dexys, their common nickname; sometimes styled with and sometimes without an apostrophe) are an English pop band with soul influences, who achieved their major success in the early to mid-1980s. They are best known in the UK for their songs “Come On Eileen” and “Geno”, both of which peaked at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, as well as six other top-20 singles.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dexys went through numerous personnel changes over the course of three albums and thirteen singles, with only singer/songwriter/co-founder Kevin Rowland remaining in the band through all of the transitions and only Rowland and “Big” Jim Paterson (trombone) appearing on all of the albums. By 1985, the band consisted only of Rowland and long-standing members Helen O'Hara (violin) and Billy Adams (guitar). The band broke up in 1987, with Rowland becoming a solo artist. After two failed restart attempts, Dexys was reformed by Rowland in 2003 with new members, as well as a few returning members from the band’s original lineup (known as Dexys Mark I). Dexys released their fourth album in 2012 and a fifth followed in 2016.

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