This Is What She's Like

The lyrics to "This Is What She's Like" were written by Kevin Rowland about his relationship with fellow Dexys Midnight Runners member Helen O'Hara.{{cite magazine |last=Trousse |first=Stephen |title=Let's make this precious |magazine=Uncut |date=June 2012 |page=32}} Rowland told Chris Roberts of Uncut in 2002 that "I'd fallen for Helen, see, and my brother said, 'I think the Italians have a word for it.' I think it came from The Godfather, when Michael Corleone's walking through Sicily chilling out after he's shot those two guys in that restaurant. I must've liked the ring of it."{{cite magazine |last=Roberts |first=Chris |title=Dexy's Midnight Runners: Grand Stand |magazine=Uncut |date=May 2002 |access-date=30 July 2021 |url=https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/dexys-midnight-runners-grand-stand |url-access=subscription }} Rowland claimed in a 2014 interview that "This song literally came to me as I was going off to sleep. Those words – 'What's she like? Tell me what's she like' – and melodies just came. It didn't sound like anything."{{cite web |last=Simpson |first=Dave |title='We were always hard workers': Kevin Rowland and Big Jim Paterson on their favourite Dexys songs |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/16/-sp-kevin-rowland-and-big-jim-paterson-favourite-dexys-songs |work=The Guardian |date=16 October 2014 |access-date=30 July 2021 |archive-date=November 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201108123002/https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/16/-sp-kevin-rowland-and-big-jim-paterson-favourite-dexys-songs |url-status=live }}

Rowland started composing "This Is What She's Like" in 1983. He taped vocals one evening, and O'Hara began composing the music, on piano, the following day. It was the first song written for the album Don't Stand Me Down (1985). Recording sessions for the album started at Mountain Studios, Montreux, Switzerland, in May 1984, with a group of musicians recruited through auditions working with Rowland, O'Hara, Dexys Midnight Runners member Billy Adams, and Nick Gatfield, who had played on the band's live tour in 1982. The initial recording sessions were not productive, and the group returned to the UK, recruiting Alan Winstanley, who had produced the previous Dexy's album Too-Rye-Ay (1982), to produce, and using Marquis Studios in London. By the end of 1984, little of the album had been completed. After seeing Tim Dancy drumming at an Al Green concert, the group sent him demos of songs including "This Is What She's Like", and Dancy agreed to join the sessions. "This Is What She's Like" was completed soon afterwards.{{cite magazine |last=Easlea |first=Daryl |title=Classic albums: Don't Stand Me Down |magazine=Record Collector |date=April 2000 |pages=50–58}}

{{Quote box

|quote =

Adams: "She must be something."
Rowland: "Yeah, she is. The Italians have a word for it."
Adams: "What word – what is it?"
Rowland: "A thunderbolt or something."

Adams: "What, you mean the Italian word for 'thunderbolt'?"
Rowland: "Yeah, something like that. I don't speak Italian myself, you understand. But I knew a man who did."

|author = Spoken dialogue

|source = from "This Is What She's Like"

}}

The first section of the song consists of a dialogue between Rowland and bandmate Adams, without music. As Rowland explains what "she" is not like, rather than what she is like, the music is soft with elements of folk. At 6 minutes and 50 seconds into the track, the accompanying music has a sound that has been compared to the Beach Boys, and concludes with brass instrument accompaniment like that found in earlier works by Dexys Midnight Runners. During the conversation, Rowland lists various dislikes, including people who put creases in their jeans, and members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, contrasting them to the titular woman.{{cite web |last=Petridis |first=Alexis |title=Kevin Rowland, jeans genie |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/feb/06/alexis-petredis-ironed-jeans-kevin-rowland |work=The Guardian |date=6 February 2010 |access-date=30 July 2021 |archive-date=October 17, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151017125353/http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/feb/06/alexis-petredis-ironed-jeans-kevin-rowland |url-status=live }}

Throughout the song, despite promises that he will say what she's like, Rowland as narrator does not do so. Sean O'Hagan of NME said that because of this, the resultant song "sounds like an extended self-parody." Nick Hasted in The Independent describes the song as "the ultimate shaggy dog story of inarticulate, unsatisfiable longing",{{cite news |last=Hasted |first=Nick |title=Pop: Dexys |work=The Independent |date=18 April 2013 |page=44}} and Daryl Easlea (2011) refers to it as a "mini-opera".{{cite book|editor-first=Robert |editor-last=Dimery |last=Easlea |first=Daryl |title=1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die |chapter=Dexy's Midnight Runners: Don't Stand Me Down |year=2011|publisher=Octopus|isbn=978-1-84403-714-8}}

Discussing the compilation album Let's Make This Precious: The Best of Dexys Midnight Runners in 2003, Rowland said "My biggest regret is that 'This Is What She's Like' wasn't a 10-minute single. I think it might have done for Dexys what 'Bohemian Rhapsody' did for Queen."{{cite magazine |last=Easlea |first=Daryl |title=Dexy's Midnight Runners: Let's Make This Precious – The Very Best Of |magazine=Record Collector |date=October 2003 |access-date=30 July 2021 |url=https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/dexys-midnight-runners-ilets-make-this-precious--the-very-best-ofi |url-access=subscription }} and stated in a 2016 webchat hosted by The Guardian that he felt that the song was one of the best by Dexys Midnight Runners.{{cite web |last=Rowland |first=Kevin |title=Kevin Rowland webchat – your questions answered on Dexys, darts and pink suits |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/live/2016/may/20/kevin-rowland-webchat-dexys-midnight-runners |work=The Guardian |date=24 May 2016 |access-date=30 July 2021 |archive-date=November 5, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201105050849/https://www.theguardian.com/music/live/2016/may/20/kevin-rowland-webchat-dexys-midnight-runners |url-status=live }} In 2004, he said that "These days I wouldn't get so worked up about people with creases in their old Levis".{{cite magazine |last=Roberts |first=Chris |title=Dexys Midnight Runners: Royal Festival Hall, London |magazine=Uncut |date=January 2004 |access-date=30 July 2021 |url=https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/dexys-midnight-runners-royal-festival-hall-london |url-access=subscription }}

The song was released on the third Dexys Midnight Runners studio album, Don't Stand Me Down, in September 1985.{{sfn|White|2005|p=210}} The album received negative reviews,{{cite news |last=Blake |first=John |title=Come on, Dexy! |work=Daily Mirror |date=3 October 1985 |page=13 |quote=hail of bad reviews}} and Barry Egan of the Sunday Independent wrote in 1997 that the album was "unanimously reviled" when released, although Easlea (2011) claims that this was not the case. The album (which has been re-released in different versions{{sfn|White|2005|p=210}}) has, in the intervening years, been hailed by some critics as a "misunderstood masterpiece", and a "lost Eighties classic". Dave Simpson of The Guardian described the album as Rowland's equivalent of Pet Sounds.{{cite news |last=Simpson |first=Dave |title=Pop: Dexys Midnight Runners |work=The Guardian |date=28 October 2003 |page=26}}

"This Is What She's Like" has been identified as the centrepiece of Don't Stand Me Down by several reviewers, including Gavin Martin of The Independent,{{cite news |last=Martin |first=Gavin |title=Pop: Dexys Midnight Runners |work=The Independent |date=12 November 2003 |page=57}} Simon Price of the same newspaper,{{cite news |last=Price |first=Simon |title=We really need to talk about Kevin |work=The Independent |date=13 May 2012 |page=46}} in The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion (2007), and in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. John Kovalic of The Capital Times regarded the song as the album's highlight,{{cite news |last=Kovalic |first=John |title=Dexy's latest run wins |work=The Capital Times |location=Madison, Wisconsin |date=7 Dec 1985 |page=9}} while Davis Niewert of the Missoulian stated that it was one of only three good tracks on the album.{{cite news |last=Niewert |first=Davis |title=Rundgen puts high-tech gimmicks to good use |work=Missoulian |date=6 December 1985 |page=A7}} The track was also singled out by Emily Barker for NME, who called the album "music of astonishing ambition".{{cite web |last=Barker |first=Emily |title=50 Albums Released in 1985 That Still Sound Great Today |url=https://www.nme.com/photos/50-albums-released-in-1985-that-still-sound-great-today-1432721 |work=NME |date=13 February 2015 |access-date=30 July 2021 |archive-date=February 10, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210210220651/https://www.nme.com/photos/50-albums-released-in-1985-that-still-sound-great-today-1432721 |url-status=live }} Uncut's Stephen Trousse, writing in 2012, called the song Rowland's "masterpiece". In the same year, Financial Times reviewer Neil O'Sullivan described it as Rowland's "most ambitious song".{{cite news |last=O'Sullivan |first=Neil | title=Latitude, Henham Park, Suffolk, UK |work=Financial Times |date=16 July 2012 }}

The track was described by Sean O'Hagan as "the single most bizarre escapade yet foisted on an unsuspecting public in the guise of a Dexys song."{{cite magazine |last=O'Hagan |first=Sean |title=Dexy's Midnight Runners: Don't Stand Me Down (Mercury) |magazine=NME |date=7 September 1985 |access-date=30 July 2021 |url=https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/dexys-midnight-runners-dont-stand-me-down-mercury |url-access=subscription }} Simon Mares, in a negative review, called the song a "rambling reprise" of the previous Dexys Midnight Runners album Too-Rye-Ay.{{cite news |last=Mares |first=Simon |title=Albums |work=Reading Evening Post |date=14 September 1985 |page=30 }} Colin Adams of Melody Maker praised the comedy of the song, saying that the opening dialogue was like a sketch from Alas Smith and Jones, before the song becomes more like a Mike Leigh play.{{cite magazine |last=Irwin |first=Colin |title=Dexy's Midnight Runners: Don't Stand Me Down |magazine=Melody Maker |date=7 September 1985 |access-date=30 July 2021 |url=https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/dexys-midnight-runners-idont-stand-me-downi |url-access=subscription }} Taking a contrary view, John Harrison of The Sydney Morning Herald called the opening of the song "fatuous dialogue" and a waste of time, and also denigrated Rowland's singing.{{cite news |last=Harrison |first=John |title=Mellencamp is far from crazy now |work=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=14 October 1985 |page=53}} Mares was also critical of the dialogue.

Author Gary Mulholland praises the song effusively, and calls it "a work of bloody-minded ambition by a man completely out of time", claiming that he detects influences of the Pete and Dud, Van Morrison, Lou Reed, folk music, and "deep soul weepies" as well as the Beach Boys on the song.{{cite book |last=Mulholland |first=Garry |title=Fear of Music |year=2008 |publisher=Orion |location=London |isbn=978-0-7528-8243-7 |pages=179–182 }} The editors of The Mojo Collection (2007) also detect a Beach Boys influence and comment that the song "merges opaque dialogue" and a "coda of Stax-style horns".{{cite book |editor1=Irvin, Jim |editor2=McLear, Colin|title=The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion|year=2007|publisher=Canongate|isbn=978-1-84195-973-3|page=494}} Martin wrote that the track "may be the angriest love song ever written", while Roberts feels that it "triumphs as an exhilarating hymn to romance".

Easlea says it was lack of a single release that lead to the album's lack of commercial success, a view shared by Rowland, who had resisted a single being released.{{sfn|White|2005|p=174}} In November 1985, various edited versions of the song were released as singles, primarily much shorter edits than the 12-minute album version.{{sfn|White|2005|p=174}} The single was dismissed as "ludicrous" by Tom Hibbert in Smash Hits{{cite magazine |last=Hibbert |first=Tom |title=Singles |magazine=Smash Hits |date=6 November 1985 |page=42}} and by Phillipa Hawker in The Age as a "sloppy" attempt to combine "Come on Eileen" and "Caroline No".{{cite news |last=Hawker |first=Philippa |title=That's what she's like |work=The Age |location=Melbourne |date=10 January 1986 |page=33}} Tom Harrison called the song a "strangled floppy rhythm and blues" in The Province.{{cite news |last=Harrison |first=Tom |title=Rock Records |work=The Province |location=Vancouver |date=8 December 1985 |page=Magazine 13}} The single did not receive much airplay,{{cite book|first=Colin |last=Larkin|title=The Encyclopedia of Popular Music |year= 2011|publisher=Omnibus Press|isbn=978-0-85712-595-8|page=653}} and reached number 78 in the UK Singles Chart.{{cite web |title=This Is What She's Like |url=https://www.officialcharts.com/search/singles/this-is-what-she's-like/ |publisher=Official Charts Company |access-date=30 July 2021 |archive-date=April 22, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190422190534/https://www.officialcharts.com/search/singles/this-is-what-she%27s-like/ |url-status=live }}

A video for the song was produced, with footage from location filming in New York (on 1 May 1985) combined with studio-filmed material. The video includes Rowland running down a deserted Fifth Avenue, and has other shots filmed to look as if he is levitating. It was directed by Jack Hazan, who Rowland approached having met during a 1983 interview for French television. Hazan intended the video to have a theme of "love represented as a form of madness."{{sfn|White|2005|p=210}}

File:Rowland crop.jpg performing in 2012]]

The song was performed on Dexys Midnight Runners' commercially unsuccessful tour in 1985. A review by Robin Denselow in The Guardian stated that the performance of "This Is What She's Like" was one of a few highlights of a show derailed by Rowland's ill-tempered demeanour.{{cite news |last=Denselow |first=Robin |title=Dexys |work=The Guardian |date=13 November 1985 |page=23}} It was next performed live by Dexys Midnight Runners in 2003. Dave Simpson's Guardian review described how a version of the song lasting nearly twenty minutes received a standing ovation. A positive review of a show by Gavin Martin in The Independent mentioned that "This Is What She's Like" received the best reaction from the crowd of any song in the set.

After a further nine-year break from touring, the band included the song in shows in 2012. Simon Price of The Independent described an encore performance at the Shepherd's Bush Empire as "utterly astonishing" and that when Rowlands asks during the song whether he can express himself, his "outburst of ecstatic laa-laa-laas says more than words ever could." In another review the following year, Price noted that Rowland was performing the song with Pete Williams as co-vocalist, and they were "walk-dancing" in the style of Flanagan and Allen during the performance.{{cite news |last=Price |first=Simon |title=Cheer up Kevin! I'm about to give you a big smacker |work=The Independent |date=21 April 2013 |page=44}} The song was included in the band's set at Latitude in 2012. Band member Jim Paterson said in 2014 that live versions were sometimes as long as 22 minutes.

Credits as per the inner sleeve of the original album release.{{Cite AV media notes |title=Don't Stand Me Down |type=Album inner sleeve notes |publisher=Mercury Music |year=1985}}

;Musicians

• Kevin Rowland – vocals
• Billy Adams – lead guitar, rhythm guitar, vocals
• Helen O'Hara – violin, backing vocals
• Nicky Gatfield – saxophone, backing vocals
• Vincent Crane – piano
• Tim Dancy – drums
• Julian Littman – mandolin
• Jimmy Paterson – trombone
• Tommy Evans – steel guitar
• Robert Noble – organ, synthesizer
• John Edwards – bass

;Technical

• Alan Winstanley, Kevin Rowland – producers
• Alan Winstanley – recording
• Pete Schwier – mixing
• Arun Chakraverty – mastering

• Don't Stand Me Down (1985){{sfn|White|2005|p=210}}
• The Very Best of Dexys Midnight Runners (1991); according to journalist Daryl Easlea, the album sought to position Dexys as a "hit singles band" and the song was "tagged on somewhat begrudgingly at the end."
• Because of You (1993){{sfn|White|2005|p=211}}
• Don't Stand Me Down (1997) – re-release on Creation Records, with two extra tracks.{{cite news |last=Egan |first=Barry |title=Dexy's cool r'n'b poetry|work=Sunday Independent |location=Dublin |date=15 June 1997 |page=G28}} Rowland complained in 2002 that "The '97 reissue on Creation was fucked up by the use of a 'stereo enhancer' during mastering – it sounded washy. It cheapened everything."
• Don't Stand Me Down: The Director's Cut (2002) Remastered re-release by EMI, with additional tracks.{{cite news |last=Kelly |first=Nick |title=Celtic soul revival |work=Sunday Tribune |date=28 April 2002 |page=AL2 }}
• Let's Make This Precious: The Best of Dexys Midnight Runners{{sfn|White|2005|p=212}}

• It Was Like This – Live (2004). DVD. Filmed in 2003.{{sfn|White|2005|p=212}}

Various edits were released.

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=White |first=Richard |title=Dexys Midnight Runners: Young Soul Rebels |publisher=Omnibus |location=London |year=2005 |isbn=1844498638}}

• {{Discogs master|141619|This Is What She's Like|type=single}}

{{Dexys Midnight Runners}}

Category:1985 singles

Category:1985 songs

Category:Dexys Midnight Runners songs

Category:Mercury Records singles

Category:Songs written by Kevin Rowland