touch

Eurythmics painted a rumor and cemented their place pop history with the expansive electronic experimentation of this stylish pop sequel.  The duo of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart had found worldwide success with their sophomore album 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)' and struck while the iron was hot, going right into their studio that they had just set up.   Stewart recalls:  “We made 'Touch' very quickly recording it upstairs in the Church Studios in Crouch End. We made it so quickly in fact that they hadn’t actually finished the studio and Michael Kamen ended up conducting the orchestra in the corridor...The first cheque I ever got was for 'Sweet Dreams' and I’d always dreamed of going to the Caribbean. So I booked a flight and arrived on Christmas Eve and I spent the night on the beach thinking, ‘What am I doing here?’  Before 'Touch' we were focused on an icy, cold, electronic, European type of music and the success of 'Sweet Dreams' meant that we could experiment. We were free in our minds and we didn’t have to repeat ourselves.”

'Touch' features Annie Lennox on vocals, flute, percussion, and keyboard; Dave Stewart on vocals, dulcimer, bass, guitar, drum programming, keyboard, and xylophone;    with Dick Cuthell on trumpet, cornet, and flugelhorn; Martin Dobson on baritone saxophone; Dean Garcia (later of Curve) on bass; and Michael Kamen  conducting the British Philharmonic on strings.  Kamen did the string arrangements and Stewart and Lennox were arrangers for the album.  Stewart produced the sessions with engineer Jon Bavin.   

'Touch' surpassed the success of 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)' by going to number twenty in France, fourteen in Switzerland, nine in Germany and Sweden, eight in Norway, seven in the US, four in Australia, and number one in New Zealand and the UK.    Lennox looks back on Stewart's influence on her:   "Wherever he is, whoever he's with, he's not fazed by anything at all.  He's fearless in that sense. And when it comes to music-making he's a facilitator...I didn't have the drive. I didn't have the self-belief....I was actually content to be defined as half of a duo... I really divested my own independent, individual self into being one half of a duo. In fact I didn't often say 'I'. I would quite purposely say 'we'. It seemed appropriate."





http://eurythmics.com/


http://davestewart.com/



http://www.annielennox.com/


http://www.eurythmics-ultimate.com/







"Here Comes the Rain Again"  
Stewart says he and Lennox wrote this sweeping mini epic when they were staying at the Mayflower Hotel in New York City:   "I'd been out on 46th Street and bought an early Casio keyboard, about 20 inches long with very small keys. It was an overcast day. Annie was sitting in my room, and I was playing some little riff on the keyboard sitting on the window ledge, and I was playing these little melancholy A minor-ish chords with the B note in it. I kept on playing this riff, and Annie was looking out the window at the slate grey sky above the New York skyline and just sang spontaneously, 'Here Comes The Rain Again.' And that was all we needed. you see, like with a lot of our songs, you only need to start with that one line, and that one atmosphere, that one note, or that intro melody. And the rest of it was like a puzzle where we needed to just fill in the missing pieces...'Here Comes The Rain Again' is kind of a perfect one where it has a mixture of things, because I'm playing a b-minor, but then I change it to put a b-natural in, and so it kind of feels like that minor is suspended, or major. So it's kind of a weird course. And of course that starts the whole song, and the whole song was about that undecided thing, like here comes depression, or here comes that downward spiral. But then it goes, 'so talk to me like lovers do.' It's the wandering in and out of melancholy, a dark beauty that sort of is like the rose that's when it's darkest unfolding and bloodred just before the garden, dies. And capturing that in kind of oblique statements and sentiments."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzFnYcIqj6I









"Right By Your Side"  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY_6ejm0AX0









"Who's That Girl?"  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5iDKWV6Chg









"No Fear, No Hate, No Pain (No Broken Hearts)"  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoCGygFAIGo



"Paint a Rumour"  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuTq-r51LS4







'Touch'full album:




All tracks written by Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart


1. "Here Comes the Rain Again"   4:54
2. "Regrets"   4:43
3. "Right By Your Side"   4:05
4. "Cool Blue"   4:48
5. "Who's That Girl?"   4:46
6. "The First Cut"   4:44
7. "Aqua"   4:36
8. "No Fear, No Hate, No Pain (No Broken Hearts)"   5:24
9. "Paint a Rumour"   7:30

sweet dreams (are made of this)

Eurythmics transformed adversity into triumph with the synthesized new wave electronica of this dark and dreamy dance pop declaration.  Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart met in 1975 and became romantically involved.  Within a year they had formed the trio the Catch with Peet Coombes and released one single 'Borderline' before morphing into the Tourists with the addition of the rhythm section of Eddie Chin on bass and Jim Toomey on drums.  After three contentious albums Lennox and Stewart sought more creative control and decided to form the duo Eurythmics.   

They got a deal with RCA Records and recorded 'In the Garden' in Cologne with Conny Plank who had produced some of the sessions for the Tourists.   The album featured Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit of Can, Clem Burke of Blondie, Robert Görl of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, Tim Wheater, and songwriting collaborations with Roger Pomphrey.  

The album was a commercial failure; but Lennon and Stewart secured a bank loan to create their own 8-track studio above a picture framing factory at Chalk Farm in London.  The sessions were produced by Dave Stewart with Robert Crash and  Adam Williams and featured Annie Lennox on vocals, keyboards, synthesisers, and flute; and Dave Stewart on guitar, keyboards, synthesisers, programming, and backing vocals with Robert Crash on guitar, e-drums, synth, and robotic vocals; Dick Cuthell on trumpet; Adam Williams on bass and synthesiser; Andy Brown on bass; Reynard Falconer on synthesisers; John Turnbull on guitar; and a guest vocal from Scritti Politti's Green Gartside.  Their first few singles ('This Is the House', 'The Walk', and 'Love Is a Stranger') floundered on the charts while all of the stress led Lennox to suffer a nervous breakdown while Steward had to be hospitalized for a collapsed lung.  

It was the release of the title track 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)' that finally provided Eurythmics with their big breakthrough.  The single and it's iconic music video made them international superstars.  

Lennox would admit:  “It annoys me sometimes that people tend to focus on me as the centre of the band, but Dave really has most of the ideas for the music and the videos. He’s the real strength.”

Stewart defered: “Oh no, everything’s shared in this partnership. Right down the middle: Sixty-Forty.  Even though our relationship was over, we were so creatively linked together that we never even considered splitting up musically.  Although we did think about getting married once.”

Lennox:  “You know the way Abba always used their love lives for publicity?  Well, RCA offered that if we would get married, they’d hire a ship and fly journalists out to it for a huge reception. We considered getting married and then starting divorce proceedings the next day, but it didn’t seem worth it...The thing is, we had been so stitched up when we started out as the Tourists in ’78, and even as Eurythmics at the beginning, we just had to take things into our own hands.  That line in ‘Sweet Dreams’ about being ‘used and abused’ refers directly to my own experiences. Not just in love, but in this business too. Right at the beginning Dave said to me, ‘Annie we must have a manifesto’, so we wrote down all the things we liked to do on a big sheet of paper.”

Stewart:  "That way we’d be sure that if we got famous it would be on our terms, doing something we enjoyed.”
Lennox:  "What I like is performing, changing my image, writing lyrics, making videos, so I’m always in the forefront...” 
Stewart:  “...whereas I prefer fiddling around in studios until the early hours of the morning, making funny noises, building up backing tracks, dreaming up ideas for videos...”
Lennox:  “So when we get together, we’ve always got a lot to discuss. That’s how we write the songs too...” 
Stewart:  “I have a sort of collage of musical ideas and she has a lot of words and images and we just sort of marry it all together in the studio."  

'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)' went to number fifteen in the US, ten in the Netherlands, nine in Austria, eight in Switzerland, six in Canada and Germany, four in France, three in the UK, and number two in New Zealand. 






http://eurythmics.com/







The single for 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)' was a top ten smash around the globe, hitting number nine in the Netherlands; eight in Switzerland; six in Australia; four in Germany; two in Ireland, New Zealand, and the UK; and number one Canada and the US.  It was the only time the group hit number one in the US.  It had been held off at number two by the Police's 'Every Breath You Take' before finally making it to number one.  It was their first single released in the US.  The music video directed by Chris Ashbrook became a staple on MTV.  



Sweet dreams are made of this 
Who am I to disagree 
I travel the world and the seven seas 
Everybody's looking for something 
Some of them want to use you 
Some of them want to get used by you 
Some of them want to abuse you 
Some of them want to be abused 
Sweet dreams are made of this 
Who am I to disagree 
I travel the world and the seven seas 
Everybody's looking for something 
Hold your head up, keep your head up, movin' on 
Hold your head up, movin' on, keep your head up, movin' on 
Hold your head up, movin' on, keep your head up, movin' on 
Hold your head up, movin' on, keep your head up 
Some of them want to use you 
Some of them want to get used by you 
Some of them want to abuse you 
Some of them want to be abused 
Hold your head up, keep your head up, movin' on 
Hold your head up, movin' on, keep your head up, movin' on 
Hold your head up, movin' on, keep your head up, movin' on 
Hold your head up, movin' on, keep your head up 
Sweet dreams are made of this 
Who am I to disagree 
I travel the world and the seven seas 
Everybody's looking for something 
Sweet dreams are made of this 
Who am I to disagree 
I travel the world and the seven seas 
Everybody's looking for something 
Sweet dreams are made of this 
Who am I to disagree I travel the world and the seven seas 
Everybody's looking for something 
Sweet dreams are made of this 
Who am I to disagree 
I travel the world and the seven seas 
Everybody's looking for something 

This is the alternative music video with the duo on a train.






'Love Is a Stranger' was re-released after the success of 'Sweet Dreams' and went to number twenty-three in the US, twenty in New Zealand, seventeen in Australia, fifteen in Canada, thirteen in the Netherlands, twelve in Germany, six in the UK, and number four in Ireland.  

Love is a stranger in an open car 
To tempt you in and drive you far away 
Love is a stranger in an open car 
To tempt you in and drive you far away 
And I want you, and I want you, and I want you so
It's an obsession 
And I want you, and I want you, and I want you so 
It's an obsession 
Love is a danger of a different kind 
To take you away and leave you far behind 
And love, love, love is a dangerous drug 
You have to receive it and you still can't get enough of the stuff 
It's savage and it's cruel and it shines like destruction 
Comes in like the flood and it seems like religion 
It's noble and it's brutal, it distorts and deranges 
And it drenches you up and you're left like a zombie 
And I want you, and I want you, and I want you
It's an obsession 
It's guilt edged, glamorous and sleek by design 
You know it's jealous by nature, false and unkind 
It's hard and restrained and it's totally cool 
It touches and it teases as you stumble in the debris 
And I want you, and I want you, and I want you so
It's an obsession 
And I want you, and I want you, and I want you so 
It's an obsession 
And I want you, and I want you, and I want you so
It's an obsession 
And I want you, and I want you, and I want you so
It's an obsession 

'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)'full album:




1.   00:00  "Love Is a Stranger"  3:43
2.   03:44  "I've Got an Angel"  2:45
3.   06:29  "Wrap It Up" (featuring Green Gartside)3:33
4.   10:02  "I Could Give You (A Mirror)"  3:51
5.   13:55  "The Walk"  4:40
6.   18:34  "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)"  3:36
7.   22:16  "Jennifer"  5:06
8.   27:20  "This Is the House"  4:56
9.   32:24  "Somebody Told Me"  3:29
10. 35:51  "This City Never Sleeps"  6:33