This Is What She's Like by Dexys Midnight Runners

Album: Don't Stand Me Down (1985)

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The centerpiece of Dexys Midnight Runners' Don't Stand Me Down album, this mini-opera ran for just short of twelve and a half minutes. Trombonist Jim Paterson commented to The Guardian in 2014: "It's not really a pop song, more of a classical piece: three separate symphonies. When we play it live now it can be 22 minutes long."
The lyrics came to frontman Kevin Rowland as he was going off to sleep. He recalled: "Those words – "What's she like? Tell me what's she like" – and melodies just came. It didn't sound like anything."

"It's a love song, but it's got a s--tlist in there about the English upper classes," he added. "I wouldn't write that now, but back then I hated them very passionately."
The 'Little Nibble' mentioned in the opening dialogue is a cafe in Bearwood Road, Smethwick in which the band used to meet up for tea-drinking sessions.
The Don't Stand Me Down album was a commercial failure upon release, in part due to Kevin Rowland's stubborn refusal to release a single. Without anything being played on the radio, the LP died at the hands of the paying public. This song was eventually released as a single, but it was unable to kickstart any sales.

Don't Stand Me Down is now considered something of a lost treasure: It was featured in the book, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, who refer to it as a "towering achievement, one that can be viewed as Pet Sounds for the 1980s."

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