'DON'T STAND ME DOWN' (Mercury 1985)

by CHRIS ROBERTS

'THE OCCASIONAL FLICKER'
Creeps in… "No, I don't want sympathy, uh", sung like an exiled god... "compromise is the devil talking" ...much self-justification, talk of redemption, aspirations to self betterment over trilling pianos and great big thwacking drums, admissions that he is indeed a better man, and so on until… the weirdest thing. A double take, one of those moments where you're not sure if you just imagined it, when he says (not sings), "It kind of reminds me of that burning feeling I used to get", and another voice, a new one to us responds from another speaker, "What?" – and suddenly the album's course has taken a determined tangent, has become MORE THAN JUST MUSIC.

–You know, that little problem I used to get.
–What, are you still getting trouble with this?
–Yeah. Not all the time or anything.
–Like it was?
–Yeah, sometimes.

And then Billy says the funniest thing.

–Are you sure it's not heartburn?

And Kevin, not fazed or displeased by this, this potential ridiculing of the classic Dexys "flame", deadpans, as if genuinely mulling it over.

– Heartburn? No, it's definitely not heartburn... it's nothing big or important, just a little matter of burning... it's not arson... it's nothing to get excited about...

Nothing to get excited about? For the first time on record, Rowland is acknowledging the existence of the in-between times, the flat sections between peaks. Of course, this makes the peaks higher, and means that "Don't Stand Me Down" is ALL PEAKS. (Now, as all through this album, the musicians are going for it.)