Tell Me When My Light Turns Green - John Peel Session

Before forming Dexys Midnight Runners, Kevin Rowland was in a punk band called The Killjoys with fellow Dexy, Kevin "Al" Archer, and Ghislaine 'Gil' Weston who would go on to join Girlschool. Rowland wrote this soulful number when he was still a Killjoy member. He recalled to The Guardian: "I already had an idea to form a big soul band with a brass section. When Kevin Archer joined the Killjoys in Spring 1978, I played him a few songs and when it came to this one he just went, "That's soul, that is." I said, "Ah, that's really good then, because this band isn't gonna go for ever and when it's over I'm gonna form this new band, doing soul."

The defiant lyrics reflect the anger Rowland felt as a 23-year-old punk. "Growing up in Birmingham as the son of Irish immigrants, I must have felt really frustrated when I wrote that," he said. "Like most of the lyrics, I'm in it when I write. I write these things because I have to."