Dexys Midnight Runners frontman Kevin Rowland has told Nigel Farage where to go after the controversial far-right politician walked out to “Come On Eileen” ahead of his Reform U.K. conference speech.
Farage was filmed walking to the stage, following a brief delay, reportedly due to security measures and protests, as Dexys’ signature song could be heard playing from the loudspeakers. The party’s national conference was held at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, the birthplace of Dexys Midnight Runners, from Sept. 3-5.
When word got to Rowland, he wasn’t happy. “I, Kevin Rowland (the son of Irish immigrants) and the main songwriter of ‘Come On Eileen,’ am disgusted to learn that Nigel Farage has used our Dexys Midnight Runners’ song to make his entrance for his party conference speech,” he writes on the band’s socials. “Myself, and all of Dexys are passionately against Farage’s politics.”
The post was accompanied with an image of a bus shelter poster, bearing a picture of Farage with the headline “he blames migrants, so you don’t blame billionaires.”
Farage, whose party is facing a criminal investigation over allegations it broke foreign funding laws, following a recent broadcast by Channel 4 News, the BBC reports, has yet to respond to Rowland’s sharp comments.
“Come On Eileen” was one of the biggest hits of its era, spending four weeks at No. 1 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart in 1982, for their second leader, and hitting the summit of the Billboard Hot 100 the following year.
Formed in 1978, Dexys Midnight Runners released three critically and commercially successful albums in the early-to-mid 1980s: Searching For The Young Soul Rebels (1980), Too-Rye-Ay (1982) and Don’t Stand Me Down (1985). “Geno” from 1980 gave the act their first U.K. No. 1 single.
Rowland, as politically astute as any recording artist living in the U.K., went on to form new bands, release solo music and drop albums as Dexys.
The alternative rock act is currently on tour in the United Kingdom in support of their new album, LOVE, the first through a deal with Heavenly Recordings. Produced by Belfast musician and DJ David Holmes, it’s the first release under the Dexys Midnight Runners name since Don’t Stand Me Down.
