Love is a stranger

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Love is a stranger
Eurythmics
publication September 1982
length 3:43
Genre (s) Synth pop , new wave
text Annie Lennox
music David A. Stewart , Annie Lennox
album Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Love is a stranger
  DE 12 12/27/1982 (26 weeks)
  UK 6th 11/20/1982 (14 weeks)
  US 23 09/17/1983 (13 weeks)

Love Is a Stranger is a song by the Eurythmics in 1982. It was created by Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart written by Stewart and Adam Williams produced .

Emergence

After the commercial failure of the two singles This Is the House and The Walk , which were also released in 1982, the duo had to rely on commercial success in order to secure further financial support from their record label RCA Records . For this reason, they wrote the song deliberately radio-friendly with a danceable rhythm and a catchy melody. The recordings took place in the home studio of Eurythmics in London , with Stewart on the synthesizers and Lennox as a singer as well as background singer Kiki Dee . The strange grunt in the background comes from the owner of a restaurant in the vicinity of the studio and was subsequently alienated with Hall .

Publication and Success

The first release took place on September 8, 1982 as the third pre-release for the upcoming second album Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) in two versions. On the B-side of one version was the track Monkey Monkey , on the other version This City Never Sleeps . Furthermore, a published maxi-single , on the B-side next to Monkey Monkey with Lets Just Close Our Eyes , a new recording of the second 1982 single The Walk was.

At the beginning of November the single entered the single charts and reached number 54. After the chart success of the associated studio album, a re-release was released at the end of March 1983 , which rose to number 12 in the single charts.

Music video

Convinced of the commercial potential of the song, a music video was shot for promotional purposes in September 1982 with a budget of £ 12,000 . Directed by Mike Brady, it was produced by Jon Roseman, who previously shot the video for Queens Bohemian Rhapsody . It was filmed on Hammersmith Bridge and near Maida Vale . The artists decided to take on the roles in the video themselves, Stewart plays the chauffeur of a limousine , Annie Lennox a prostitute . In the first part of the video, which was shot in the limo, she is dressed expensively and wears a blonde wig. In the middle section, which takes place in Stewart's mother's apartment, she wears a black wig. That part was sadomasochistic embossed with lots of leather and a lolling on the ground and moaning protagonist . In the third part of the video, she appears without make-up and in men's clothing and ends up as a doll that is controlled by the chauffeur.

Legend has it that the US music broadcaster MTV asked Lennox to give her a birth certificate to make sure she was a woman and not a transvestite . In fact, the broadcast manager in charge switched off the video during the first broadcast at the point when Lennox leaves the limousine and pulls the blonde wig from his head because he thought Lennox was a transvestite. The video was shown in the following period no longer with MTV, yet it was by the British magazine Music Week and Video as Video of the Year 1982 award.

Cover versions

literature

  • Bryony Sutherland, Lucy Ellis: Annie Lennox: The Biography . Omnibus Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-7119-9192-7 , pp. 143-147 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ release date
  2. ↑ Charts DE Charts UK Charts US
  3. ↑ Sutherland / Ellis, p. 143.
  4. ↑ Sutherland / Ellis, p. 144.
  5. ↑ a b Sutherland / Ellis, p. 145.
  6. ↑ a b Sutherland / Ellis, p. 146.

Web links