Kevin Rowland, Searching for the Young Soul Rebels, and the Courage to Be Yourself
I’m in Ireland, reading Kevin Rowland’s autobiography. Predictably, it’s brilliant — one of the best music autobiographies in years, and much more than a story about pop and pop stars.
I can’t tell you exactly what Rowland says his music means to him — you’ll have to buy the book for that — but I can tell you what his music means to me.
The early chapters trace his journey from Ireland to Wolverhampton to London. Every few years brought a new school, new friends, and a new accent to adopt. Each move meant learning a fresh set of unspoken rules — with swift and often violent consequences for getting them wrong. There was pressure to be a model student, a priest, a builder.
This isn’t a story about finding a gang or a tribe, though Rowland’s instincts for fashion and youth culture shine through.
It’s about something deeper: searching for identity. To be your authentic self. When you mask yourself for long enough to fit in, you risk forgetting where the mask ends and you begin.
My Lifelong Love Affair with Searching for the Young Soul Rebels
I’ve owned Searching for the Young Soul Rebels in every format since its 1980 release. It was one of the first albums I ever bought, and possibly the best debut album of all time.
My parents didn’t like me playing pop music on the precious wood-panelled hi-fi downstairs, so I bought it on cassette and played it on a tinny tape recorder in my bedroom. When I finally saved up for a record player, I bought it on vinyl. Later, CD. Then vinyl again when the original wore out.
It opens with a radio dial spinning — brass band music, then the tired metal of Deep Purple, then The Sex Pistols and The Specials. Bands still considered cool at the time — but each skipped over in search of something new. As a statement of intent, it was brilliant and arrogant.
The sound matched the swagger: Northern Soul and R&B re-shaped by punk energy. Brass-driven, propulsive, angry. The lyrics were incredible — the righteous fury of There There My Dear inspired by classic Irish literature, delivered in almost stream-of-consciousness bursts, yet every line precise and scathing.
But the towering track for me is Dance Stance (later re-recorded as Burn It Down), with its chanted roll-call of Irish literary greats — Oscar Wilde, Brendan Behan, Seán O’Casey, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Eugene O’Neill, Edna O’Brien, Laurence Sterne. Clever, cool, and a devastating answer to every crass Irish joke by every crass comedian.
The album’s identity emerges as equal parts Black American soul and Irish literary genius. Nothing feels borrowed or appropriated — it’s completely authentic.
Authenticity and the Masks We Wear
For me, Searching for the Young Soul Rebels is about the courage to strip away the mask and reveal your true self — and the raw vulnerability that comes with it.
I grew up a white bloke in a white town. My kids grew up mixed-race, choosing for themselves how much of each parent’s and grandparent’s identity to carry forward. They’ve also added pieces that owe nothing to their ancestry. Being cut adrift from history can be painful — but it can also be liberating. You can build yourself anew, whether your icons are James Joyce or James Brown.
Today, social media pressures people to wear masks more than ever. To present a curated version of themselves, shaped to please — or at least avoid offending — a hyper-judgmental audience. Being authentically yourself is now an act of defiance.
Changing Styles, Changing Sounds
Rowland’s identity might have been fixed, but the bands style wasn't. Every year seemed to bring a new look — donkey jackets and bowling bags gave way to boxing boots. I never wore the donkey jacket at the time, but I have one now in blue tweed, and I have a fine collection of wooly watch caps. I wore my white Lonsdale boxing boots to death until my mum, trying to help, replaced them with white Nike high-tops. On my big feet, they looked like clown shoes. But money was tight, so I wore them anyway. My classmates called them breakdance wellies.
I’ll admit: I didn’t love the second Dexys album as much. Come On Eileen will forever be the sound of school discos and trying to persuade girls to dance with me.
When Projected Passion Review came out a decade ago I realised the creative process that had shaped Too-Rye-Ay. This is still genius
And when the third came out, I was baffled. My best friend Phil adored it instantly. I doubted his taste — though I did admire the Brooks Brothers button-downs. As an adult I visited their Madison Avenue store and bought a bag full.
Phil didn’t make it. When I heard he’d died, I played Don’t Stand Me Down.
Turns out, he was right. It’s every bit as brilliant as Searching for the Young Soul Rebels.
Kevin Rowland, Phil, and the Lift-Off
As Kevin Rowland starts to levitate in my mind’s eye — Alden shell cordovans lifting off a Manhattan sidewalk — I think of Phil. Of who he was, of who I am, of my kids, and of everything this music has meant.
Which is a lot for one pop song.