I Love You (Listen to This)

Album: Don't Stand Me Down (1985)
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Songfacts®:

  • Originally titled "Listen To This" on the 1985 release of Don't Stand Me Down, the song was given its new title on the 1996 "Director's cut" reissue of the album.
  • Vocalist Kevin Rowland told The Guardian about the genesis of this song. "We'd been to America, doing interviews all day long, meeting the record company – and you're supposed to do a gig after that," he recalled. "It was demeaning. I was dragging the songs out live, trying to find an intensity in them that I never could, and it all seemed a bit empty really. I felt we were compromising."

    "Then I fell in love. I was torn: obsessed with her but not enjoying the band," he continued. "The opening line – 'I was thinking of a compromise when I saw the beauty in your eyes' – just came out."
  • The Dexys performed this in September 1985 on the UK Channel 4 music show The Tube.

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