STACK #184 Feb 2020

MUSIC FEATURE

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EURYTHMICS

the song’s distinctive duelling synthline and Stewart estimates Sweet Dreams was written “in about 30 minutes”, in the duo’s tiny studio above a picture framing shop in the London district of Chalk Farm. Prior to this songwriting sesh, Stewart underwent a near-death experience during an operation to repair a punctured lung, which he believes gave him a new lease on life. Lennox, however, remembers feeling jaded: “I felt like we were in a dream world, that whatever we were chasing was

Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

Year 1983

Bryget Chrisfield explores a favourite record which spelled the lift-off to cultural stardom for an important act. This month: Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) .

I rish DJ/producer Rebuke dropped a cranking remix of Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) during his outstanding set at Burnley Circus Park last month, which got us thinking: imagine the royalties this song has clocked up for Eurythmics since its release!? “Every morning I just get told, ‘Oh, there’s like 20 new remixes of Sweet Dreams ’ – literally every day,” Dave who created Creamfields, he’ll send me a video text when he’s at a festival and there’s 50,000 people singing Sweet Dreams ... Sweet Dreams just became Happy Birthday , basically, in a way. It’s everywhere you go.” Stewart and his Eurythmics partner Annie Lennox experienced chart success with previous band The Tourists (their 1979 cover of Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want To Be With You reached #6 on Australia’s Kent Music Report), but the pair weren’t the main songwriters; guitarist/singer Peet Coombes filled that role. In an interview with Dave Simpson, Stewart described how a jam session Down Under set Eurythmics in motion: “Annie and I went to Australia with The Tourists, but the band broke up and we ended up sat in a hotel in Wagga Wagga. I had a little black and yellowWasp synthesiser and was making didgeridoo sounds. When Annie started singing along, we thought: ‘Maybe we could make weird and experimental electronic music?’” Lennox and Stewart were a couple back then, but after breaking up during the long flight home they decided to remain committed to making music together, and soon realised they would need to invest in some proper equipment. Stewart hilariously Stewart told Tom Doyle during an interview. “My mate James Barton,

recounted an appointment with their bank manager: “Sat in his office, we were this odd couple. I was taking speed. Annie wasn’t. Amazingly, he lent us £5,000.” The initial Sweet Dreams beat came

never going to happen.” Admitting he has a propensity towards “wandering in and out of melancholy” with his songwriting, Stewart suggested the escalating chord changes and hopeful “Hold your head up, movin’ on...” segment to offset Lennox’s pessimistic lyricism. And those celestial beats that enter the arrangement at around this point? They were created by tapping milk bottles, which Eurythmics filled up with different volumes of water. As arresting as the song itself may be, the Sweet Dreams film clip’s high rotation on MTV definitely cemented it as a global hit (and U.S. #1). Stewart says the overall video is a commentary on the music business, with the cow signifying reality. Trying to find a studio large enough to accommodate a cow proved to be a logistical nightmare, but they eventually found a basement space with an elevator big enough to transport said cow. Stewart recounted, “There we were: Annie and I laid flat on a table, and this cow, which was peeing everywhere.” With her bright orange buzz cut, porcelain complexion, chiselled cheekbones and androgynous styling, Lennox’s striking image could be described as a Scottish version of

Eurythmics photographed by David Montgomery (1983)

courtesy of a Movement MCS Percussion Computer funded by said loan – the very same instrument that Stewart can be seen playing in a cow-filled field during the song’s accompanying music video. Stewart recalled struggling to get this new equipment to work while Lennox “was totally depressed”: “She was curled up on the floor in the foetal position when I managed to produce this beat and riff. She suddenly went, ‘What the hell is that?’ and leapt up and started playing the other synthesiser.” Lennox then completed

14 FEBRUARY 2020

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