Come On Eileen

Save Ferris took Dexys Midnight Runners' Celtic-soul anthem and detonated it through the lens of late-nineties third-wave ska, and the result is pure, breathless exuberance. Where the original broods with fiddles and sweat-soaked desperation, this version charges forward on a wall of punchy brass — trumpets and trombones trading phrases over a relentlessly upstroke guitar and a snare that cracks like a starting pistol. Monique Powell's voice is the center of gravity: bright, slightly raspy at the edges, and shot through with a grinning confidence that refuses to take anything too seriously. She doesn't long for Eileen so much as chase her down a sun-drenched street, laughing. The energy never lets up, cycling through the song's familiar architecture with the manic joy of a band playing their favorite track at top volume. The emotional register is uncomplicated but infectious — this is music that bypasses the brain entirely and goes straight to the feet. It belongs at a summer barbecue, in a packed small venue with a sticky floor, or blasting from a car window in 1997 with the windows down. It doesn't carry the wistfulness of the original, but it offers something the original never quite had: the sensation that everyone in the room is in on the joke and loving every second of it.