i've always prefered "love is a stranger" to "sweet dreams (are made of this)". LIAS's sound is haunting, pacing, just barely bubbling under the surface until IT SPRINGS ALIVE in the bridge. it literally sounds like OBSESSION 👀
This song is as cool today as it was in the 80’s. I remember writing down the lyrics to those middle sections as a 10 year old wondering what some of the words meant. Lol. I still love to sing those lines nowadays. “And it wrenches you up and you’re left like a zombieeeeee” 💙
1983. Eurythmics dropped "Love Is a Stranger" as the third single from their second album. But the fourth single from that album, "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", was a such a huge hit it left it in the dust. MTV ran this video quite a lot after that. Seeing Annie Lennox in the blond wig and later the black wig was somewhat thrilling for fifteen year old me. A buddy of mine bought that album and I copied it to tape. "Love Is a Stranger" opens that album. The synths firmly attach the song to the eighties, but the reverb echoed guitar strums evoke Tommy James "Crimson and Clover" from the sixties. The chorus melody is super catchy, but the bridges are where this song shines, imo. "It touches and it teases as you stumble in the debris..."
The Eurythmics always made such bold stylistic choices, both in the music and their presentation of it. In 1984 they performed Sweet Dreams at the Grammys and Annie was in full on male drag complete with jet black pompidour and side burns...like a cross between Elvis and Johnny Cash. Phenomenal. Her voice is other worldly and her visual artistry actually transports you to that other world and makes you look at something seemingly familiar in a whole new mystifying context.
I remember LOVING this song and LIVING for this video when it came out. I love how the song builds and gets darker with each verse. The concept of the video and the lewks Annie served up was BEYOND next-level at the time.
The music video for "Love Is A Stranger" came out first. When RCA Records sent the music video to MTV in 1982, the network refused to air it initially, because they were not willing to air a music video featuring a transvestite. They thought that Annie Lennox was a MAN. RCA Records responded by making the music video for "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)", and featuring Annie Lennox as the man MTV Management always thought she was. And for the rest of her musical career, to use a professional wrestling phrase, she "maintained kayfabe (remaining in character in public off-stage)" imagewise. Note: Before these two music videos were made, Eurythmics worked with a college student who was studying directing, and they made a self-produced music video for their song, "The Walk", and paid for the production with their very own money. The music video was rejected by RCA Records, and was never aired publicly, and is not considered a part of their music video canon. Many years later, the director found a way to upload the only surviving copy of the music video for "The Walk" onto RU-vid. I have watched the music video. It is a low-budget affair, but it has entertainment value. Annie Lennox has a very different image in the music video. If you remember the character in the "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" music video with the long black hair, who is playing the cello or viola along with Dave Stewart in the field, that is the character Annie Lennox portrays in "The Walk". That was also her public stage persona at that time, This is proven by the TV performances Eurythmics did to promote "Love Is A Stranger" in the UK in 1982. That all changed after the "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" music video was made.
Do I need a man, if you haven't already. Annie tears it apart! So beautiful, sexy and that voice. Another fave is Put the blame on me. Savage and Revenge are great albums. They also did a soundtrack for the movie 1984 that was very good but largely ignored, aside from the single Julia.
🤍👄🤖 Never had there been such a coldly merciless, yet oh so sleek and seductive, take down of all the romantic cliches of love songs. This glamourous ice queen, this dark haired S&M girl, this masc androgynous robot, all versions of Annie destroying preconceptions by singing of love as a monster, a destroyer, an abductor, a poison. But then the chorus “And I want you so it’s an obsession” confirming that even the most cynical among us cannot resist the intoxication. I loved this when I was barely out of childhood, so early was my realisation that the path to love would be perilous, but along with all the wonderful experiences I’ve shared with lovers and relationships over the years, I have to say the darker side of love has also been thoroughly confirmed. This single was released before Sweet Dreams, and didn’t sell at all, but when was re-released a year later when they’d gotten more traction with the epic synth masterpiece that is Sweet Dreams, it became a worldwide hit. It’s that moment Madonna describes in one of her early interviews, when the music and image all come together in the public imagination and they suddenly GET IT. I couldn’t love Eurythmics and Annie more. They are up on top of the sonic cake that wedded me to music, along with Bowie, Madonna and MJ… My absolute eternal formative stars.
This song was in fact in the second album ''Sweet Dreams''. And yes, it's was the first single of the second album. This song was later re-released after her breakthrought with ''Sweet Dreams'' and it's was a hit. I remember to hear this song when my mom played so much the greatest hits in the cars.
I believe this was around the same time frame as Sweet Dreams.. I was in my teens and bought a bunch of Eurythmics albums over the years.. This song always reminds me of the look and feel of growing up in Hollywood and the Club Scene back in the 80s into my late teens and early 20s.. Such a great song!
I'm in my mid-30's. The last big song the Eurythmics really had was "No More I Love You's". It was a pretty big song, but I was surprised that I didn't hear much from Annie Lennox until a few years ago. It seems like she's mostly doing classical music. This group reminds me of a mix of Madonna and Daft Punk. I would recommend their 1) 1981 debut-it's a cool pop-rock cd-it's like Kelly Clarkson lol 2) Annie's Diva Album from 1992 3) Their 1985 album from "Be Your Self-Tonight -it's a collaboration album with a lot of guests like Stevie Wonder. Their other work is a little bit too experimental. But you'll love them once you get into them.
This song was released before "Sweet Dreams" and also after it. It was initially released with some success but after they did "Sweet Dreams" they re-released it to much greater success. It made sense because they became extremely populer after "Sweet Dreams" so anything after that was going to do better than anything before it............weird, but true.
They're greatest hits package was and still is a great driving album for road trips although I haven't had a CD player in my cars for like forever now but you know what I mean!!
Love this song. I believe MTV banned this video due to the ripping off of the wig, and they thought it was a man dressing up as a woman since Annie does dress as a man at the end.
...Oh, empess this Video was VERRRRRY controversial at the time; it was the follow-up to "Sweet Dreams" in the USA, but it actually came out BEFORE it, in the UK...The Video is suggesting that Annie is 'paid' to be whomever (or, WHATEVER) her clients hired her to be.... Male, Female, whatever...very daring, for 1983....
Annie's look was only shocking and innovative to those in the USA. The short-cropped, female hairdo and androgynous look had already been worn by Siouxsie Sioux and others in England some six or seven years before Annie had donned it. The hairdo (the cut, at least) is as least as old as the sixties (Julie Driscoll comes to mind). While I am not fading her talent, Annie (as well as Cyndi Lauper and Madonna) used to get a fair amount of press due to the fashion/look, which was basically punk-lite and old hat to anyone on the scene back in the day.
