There were a lot of bands and artists who arrived on the scene in the 1980s with a distinctive look and a striking single that didn’t have much staying power beyond that. Eurythmics had the look and the single, but Annie Lennox and David Stewart possessed the substance as well, which eventually led to a spot for them in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Although they came from Great Britain, they certainly found a home on the U.S. charts. Here are the five Eurythmics songs that did the best here in the States.
5. “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves” (with Aretha Franklin) (No. 18 in 1985)
The timing was right for this duet. The Queen of Soul was in the middle of a commercial rebound after a long fallow period at the time she connected with Eurythmics. And Annie Lennox had established herself at that point as one of the few singers of the era who could get in the ring with Aretha and not get blown out of there. Give credit to Lennox for writing lyrics that were empowering without being awkward. The instrumentalists on this track include Stan Lynch, Benmont Tench, and Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers.
4. “Missionary Man” (No. 14 in 1986)
This song came from the album Revenge, which in this case was aptly titled, because Lennox was partly writing about a man to whom she’d briefly been married a few years earlier. Musically, this is a steamroller of a track, as Eurythmics fall into a techno sort of groove before that was really identified as a genre all its own. While the song might have originated from specifics in Lennox’s life, she mostly keeps the words on the more general side, making the song a somewhat sarcastic tribute to the overly righteous who would judge everyone else.
3. “Would I Lie to You?” (No. 5 in 1985)
Based on their first few breakout singles, Eurythmics gained the reputation as a robotic type of band, driven by synths and Lennox’s icy vocals. Their 1985 album Be Yourself Tonight seemed like a conscious effort to combat that type of image and let some passion and humanity shine through. They couldn’t have picked a better vessel for that strategy than “Would I Lie to You?” a barn-burning, horn-drenched workout that showed that Stewart could locate the soul as a composer and Lennox could play the sassy diva to the hilt.
2. “Here Comes the Rain Again” (No. 4 in 1984)
There’s something quite elegant in the way the strings, arranged by Michael Kamen (a veteran of many huge rock-classical hybrid projects), play off the synths here. It’s a song that’s drenched in mystery and melancholy. Lennox’s lyrics are a series of simple statements, which when added up together, create a tableau that’s somehow vast and vague all at once. After mostly keeping it cool for the bulk of “Here Comes the Rain Again,” she gets to cut loose with unhinged vocals at the end of the song, providing a necessary burst of emotion.
1. ”Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” (No. 1 in 1983)
The story goes that Lennox was pessimistic about the chances of Eurythmics succeeding on a widespread level following the demise of the band that once included her and Stewart. But then Stewart stumbled into an exciting synth groove, and Lennox then let out all her doubts and frustrations into the lyrics to this chart-topper. That title refrain is certainly meant to be ironic, especially when it’s followed up by a nod to people’s inherent mercenary qualities: Everybody’s looking for something. This is one of those songs that’s 40 years old and could be a hit if released today, so forward-looking was its sound back then.
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