A Song-by-Song Look at Mega Man: The Album – Eileen by Skid Row

LBD "Nytetrayn"

November 1, 2023

If you missed the first part of this series, check it out first to get caught up on what this is all about.

Don’t worry, we’ll wait.

Ready? Good! Let’s jam.

The Song: “Eileen” by Skid Row. Written by Dave “The Snake” Sabo, Rachel Bolan, Rob Affuso, and Sebastian Bach.

Who Are They? Oh, probably nobody big. I mean, this is just the Mega Man cartoon, right? We can’t even get any sort of band music for our intros like Japan does, so

Let’s see… they come from Toms River, New Jersey, and were formed in 1986. Their genres are hard rock, hair metal, and glam metal. Nice.

They’ve had six studio albums, four EPs, one compilation album, and are still active today.

And… their first two albums went multi-platinum (going platinum in the US means selling a million units), and by the end of 1996 (around the time this was released), they sold over 20 million albums worldwide.

Damn.

sUBHUMAN rACE, from which the song we’re looking at today comes, was their third album. It was also the last to feature singer Sebastian Bach and drummer Rob Affuso, and the last to be published by Atlantic, who just so happen to be the group behind the Mega Man soundtrack. You can find out more about it .

So, wow. I don’t know much about the music business, and so I don’t know if these guys count as “heavy hitters,” but they’re big enough to impress me, for whatever that’s worth.

How Is It, And Does It Fit Mega Man? It starts with a nice, low-key and ominous tone, then quickly picks up into something a little more upbeat, but nothing too fast, before returning to the more ominous and low-key. It kind of goes back and forth like this a bit on and off, before shifting to kind of a different tune in the last quarter or so. It’s kind of a neat vibe.

Genius.com has the full lyrics, and here’s a sampling from Google:

There are things we cannot see that hang
Within her sight
There are people we won’t remember that
Dance with her at night
Eileen’s calling me
To sit awhile and talk to trees
Eileen can’t you see
The songs you sing are scaring me
Eileen, Eileen
She romances with the moon
Full and alone
It’s really a street light
It’s something we all know

As before, they have precisely jack and squat to do with Mega Man, but that’s okay, they don’t necessarily have to. Tons of songs for Rockman and anime and just cartoons, movies, and soundtracks in general don’t directly correlate with the attached media, so no need to expect different here. Besides, it’ll all come together when we reach that big finale with the “Mega Man Theme,” right?

Still, lyrics aside, I feel like this kind of works in the context of Mega Man. Sure, not as a stage theme or anything, but in some form of storytelling, I can easily imagine this being used as the backdrop to some sort of mysterious storytelling moment right before a big revelation, or a turning of the tide. Like maybe if there was a more elaborate version of the battle with Dr. Cossack in Mega Man 4, and before a decisive blow can be delivered, it shifts to a more upbeat part when Proto Man arrives with Kalinka, and then back to the more ominous when Dr. Wily arrives to deliver his threat and challenge Mega Man to meet him at his castle.

Damn. Why couldn’t that have been in an episode? Oh well.

Anyway, I like it, and can jam to it as a Mega Man song, in a sort of roundabout way. That said, despite my idea above, it might work better for something like Mega Man X than something from the Classic series. On the other hand, it might work well for something from the Ian Flynn’s Archie comic or Hitoshi Ariga’s Megamix series.

So consider this my recommendation, and see what moments from the series you think it might pair well with.

Oh, and if you ever get to meet Skid Row in person, be sure to ask what they think of being a part of the 1996 Mega Man cartoon album! And if they don’t call security to have you immediately removed from the premises, be sure to tell me what they said! I’d love to know!

Album cover art and other information via Discogs.

Thanks for reading! And in case you haven’t heard, re-upping our hosting for the next few years took a big bite out of our bank account, so if you like what we’re doing here, would like to see us expand our breadth of content, and can kick in a few bucks to our Patreon or buy us an E Tank on Ko-fi, we’d greatly appreciate it!

LBD "Nytetrayn"

David Oxford, or “LBD ‘Nytetrayn’,” as he is sometimes also known, is a freelance writer of many varied interests who resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

For a full list of places to find him online, click here.