[MUSIC] The Eurythmics' B-Sides
Oct. 13th, 2005 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldBack in 2001, I had an Internet connection and little to use it on: no IMing, little E-mailing, certainly no blogging. Back in 2001, though, we were just beginning to hear of Napster and file-sharing and the serious implications that this had for the music industry. An idea appeared in my mind shortly thereafter. I didn't use Napster, of course--I only had dial-up, and I didn't trust my computer. Back then, though, one thing that was not only available but free and actually useful was Audiogalaxy, a searchable website with links to different musics and the software capable of resuming interrupted downloads. I went to the site, and downloaded the Audiogalaxy software, and installed it, and sat ready to commit.
I still found myself paralyzed. There was just too much to choose from. That's when I realized that, for years, I'd been gazing longingly at Andrew Krieg's complete discography of all the Eurythmics' B-sides. There were plenty of B-sides, tantalizing names only. Once I did buy the cassingle version of the "Don't Ask Me Why" single and discovered, much to my delight, that song "Rich Girl," a song that sounded quite like it should have belonged on the Eurythmics' 1989 We Too Are One album. But that was it.
I knew thanks to Krieg's discography that there were plenty of Eurythmics B-sides, almost as many minutes of Eurythmics music that I hadn't heard on the singles that I didn't own as I had heard on the albums that I did own. I wondered: How many could I get? Turning to Krieg's discography, I entered a song's name into Audiogalaxy's search window. To my surprise, without fail I was able to find at least one source. Ever the determined fanboy, I was quite willing to wait to download the songs. In the end, I was able to get all of the B-sides but one, "Dub Angel," but since that song's apparently an instrumental I'm not concerned. I also hauled in--one-off fan remixes and mashups, live tracks--but the B-sides were, and are, what mattered.
Would I have bought these singles? Certainly. When the remastered albums come out, each containing their own quota of B-sides and unreleased songs, you can be sure that I'll acquire as many as my resources allow. Alas those singles weren't for sale anywhere, and the remastered albums' release--indeed, their very remastering--has been delayed. I respect the Eurythmics as much as anyone, but what is a fan to do if these songs aren't available at all? Filesharing has its good side: I now have two complete hours of original Eurythmics music that I never heard before. Some of the B-sides have since graduated to join "Love Is A Stranger" and "Here Comes the Rain Again" and the entire Savage album as my favourites. To wit:
"Le Sinistre" is the B-side to the Eurythmics' first single, "Never Gonna Cry Again." It begins with heavy footsteps and a menacing sparse piano backbeat, highlighted by a low-key mournful saxophone. Annie's vocals sound slightly slurred, recounting her persona's encounter with a strange man, with someone who is "warning me of your black humour." More of a mood piece than a coherent narrative, it's a worthy first entry into the B-side files.
A live version appears on the "This Is The House" single, like "Never Gonna Cry Again" from their underrated 1981 debut In The Garden A studio version was recorded elsewhere; somehow, I have a copy of this. For people more used to Annie Lennox's mature measured solo career, "4/4 in Leather" is a surprising raunchy song, with its bouncing drum beat and shrieking guitar anchoring her voice in a frantic lustful recitation.
"Don't forget to remember me," she screams in her chorus. One isn't surprised that this didn't become an album track in the early 1980s.
A track off of the Eurythmics' 12" "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" single, "Baby's Gone Blue" is an unsettling collage of sounds. The narrative takes priority, the cyclically-structured music setting the way for an anonymous faintly-accented man to describe a death: "As he did so her body slammed backwards. At first when we saw her eyes we when we saw her eyes we thought she was sleeping. She was already dead. Oh yes, he called her name."
Annie's voice accents this narrative, told again and again, in greater or lesser detail.
Her voice becomes ruthlessly pragmatic, even cruel.
The best is her coo: "Who are you going to send flowers to?" I'm not sure how well the song works as such, but as an artifact of Burroughsian cutup in popular music it serves admirably.
First included on the 1983 single "Right By Your Side", Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love" was a staple of the Eurythmics' live performances from the beginning. Like "Tous les garçons et les filles," the Eurythmics took an originally fairly languid song and accelerated it, making it more energetic and more urgent. The futurism, the sense of distance, and the playful romance with undercurrents of danger that Reed wrote into "Satellite of Love" work well for the Eurythmics.
The playful recitation of a lover's imagined sins--"I’ve been told that you’ve been bold/With Harry, Mark and John/Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday to Thursday/With Harry, Mark and John."--is delivered lightly in an accusatory tone, almost in whispers, surrounded by fuller and richer vocals and music.
This hi-NRG disco song almost made it onto 1984's Be Yourself Tonight. There's not all that much to the song, between its high BPM and its faintly accusatory tone, the lyrics addressed to a romantic rival ("Don't you take what you get/Like a baby waiting to be spoonfed?"). The thing is, "Grown Up Girls" is incredibly fun.
I've written elsewhere about the Eurythmics' cover of this Françoise Hardy classic, and how Annie's overprecise vocalizations and the overall speed of the album contrast with Françoise Hardy's slower and more resigned original. I don't like it as well as I once did, but I like it still.
After "Tous les garçons et les filles," the interesting B-sides dry up. There are remixes, yes, and live tracks, but no more original songs. The exceptions are the songs recorded for the Eurythmics' aborted mid-1980s movie project, reported here by a fan.
I really, really want to hear all of the songs included on this soundtrack. I have heard one, or at least part of one. Somehow, in the course of my Audiogalaxy searches, I did find the a minute of their cover of the Smiths' "Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me". The Smiths' original is overly languid, dense. The Eurythmics' version is a fantastic improvement, dense and powerful as is their wont, with rich synth strings guiding Annie's pure vocals.
I want the remastered albums to be remastered, post-haste. I want CD quality versions of all these songs, and official lyrics. If anyone's wondering how well the remastered albums will sell, be assured that they'll sell well. They should, at least, simply on the strength of the various B-sides. I'll wait for the remasters, but for the time being, I'm terribly grateful to the Swiss for inventing the mp3 technology that lets me enjoy these B-sides, regardless of how degraded the quality.
I still found myself paralyzed. There was just too much to choose from. That's when I realized that, for years, I'd been gazing longingly at Andrew Krieg's complete discography of all the Eurythmics' B-sides. There were plenty of B-sides, tantalizing names only. Once I did buy the cassingle version of the "Don't Ask Me Why" single and discovered, much to my delight, that song "Rich Girl," a song that sounded quite like it should have belonged on the Eurythmics' 1989 We Too Are One album. But that was it.
I knew thanks to Krieg's discography that there were plenty of Eurythmics B-sides, almost as many minutes of Eurythmics music that I hadn't heard on the singles that I didn't own as I had heard on the albums that I did own. I wondered: How many could I get? Turning to Krieg's discography, I entered a song's name into Audiogalaxy's search window. To my surprise, without fail I was able to find at least one source. Ever the determined fanboy, I was quite willing to wait to download the songs. In the end, I was able to get all of the B-sides but one, "Dub Angel," but since that song's apparently an instrumental I'm not concerned. I also hauled in--one-off fan remixes and mashups, live tracks--but the B-sides were, and are, what mattered.
Would I have bought these singles? Certainly. When the remastered albums come out, each containing their own quota of B-sides and unreleased songs, you can be sure that I'll acquire as many as my resources allow. Alas those singles weren't for sale anywhere, and the remastered albums' release--indeed, their very remastering--has been delayed. I respect the Eurythmics as much as anyone, but what is a fan to do if these songs aren't available at all? Filesharing has its good side: I now have two complete hours of original Eurythmics music that I never heard before. Some of the B-sides have since graduated to join "Love Is A Stranger" and "Here Comes the Rain Again" and the entire Savage album as my favourites. To wit:
"Le Sinistre" is the B-side to the Eurythmics' first single, "Never Gonna Cry Again." It begins with heavy footsteps and a menacing sparse piano backbeat, highlighted by a low-key mournful saxophone. Annie's vocals sound slightly slurred, recounting her persona's encounter with a strange man, with someone who is "warning me of your black humour." More of a mood piece than a coherent narrative, it's a worthy first entry into the B-side files.
A live version appears on the "This Is The House" single, like "Never Gonna Cry Again" from their underrated 1981 debut In The Garden A studio version was recorded elsewhere; somehow, I have a copy of this. For people more used to Annie Lennox's mature measured solo career, "4/4 in Leather" is a surprising raunchy song, with its bouncing drum beat and shrieking guitar anchoring her voice in a frantic lustful recitation.
I want a leather dress
I want a leather dress
I want a leather lover
Nothing left to spare
Black leather
black leather
Tear it up above my head
Tear it up above my head
"Don't forget to remember me," she screams in her chorus. One isn't surprised that this didn't become an album track in the early 1980s.
A track off of the Eurythmics' 12" "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" single, "Baby's Gone Blue" is an unsettling collage of sounds. The narrative takes priority, the cyclically-structured music setting the way for an anonymous faintly-accented man to describe a death: "As he did so her body slammed backwards. At first when we saw her eyes we when we saw her eyes we thought she was sleeping. She was already dead. Oh yes, he called her name."
Annie's voice accents this narrative, told again and again, in greater or lesser detail.
Cold/
Dead/
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!/
Sweetheart!/
Baby's gone blue!
Her voice becomes ruthlessly pragmatic, even cruel.
Look at the mess
In your new party dress
Ohhh--Baby's gone blue!
The best is her coo: "Who are you going to send flowers to?" I'm not sure how well the song works as such, but as an artifact of Burroughsian cutup in popular music it serves admirably.
First included on the 1983 single "Right By Your Side", Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love" was a staple of the Eurythmics' live performances from the beginning. Like "Tous les garçons et les filles," the Eurythmics took an originally fairly languid song and accelerated it, making it more energetic and more urgent. The futurism, the sense of distance, and the playful romance with undercurrents of danger that Reed wrote into "Satellite of Love" work well for the Eurythmics.
Satellite’s gone
Up to the skies
Thing like that drive me
Out of my mind
I watched it for a little while
I like to watch things on tv
The playful recitation of a lover's imagined sins--"I’ve been told that you’ve been bold/With Harry, Mark and John/Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday to Thursday/With Harry, Mark and John."--is delivered lightly in an accusatory tone, almost in whispers, surrounded by fuller and richer vocals and music.
This hi-NRG disco song almost made it onto 1984's Be Yourself Tonight. There's not all that much to the song, between its high BPM and its faintly accusatory tone, the lyrics addressed to a romantic rival ("Don't you take what you get/Like a baby waiting to be spoonfed?"). The thing is, "Grown Up Girls" is incredibly fun.
I've written elsewhere about the Eurythmics' cover of this Françoise Hardy classic, and how Annie's overprecise vocalizations and the overall speed of the album contrast with Françoise Hardy's slower and more resigned original. I don't like it as well as I once did, but I like it still.
After "Tous les garçons et les filles," the interesting B-sides dry up. There are remixes, yes, and live tracks, but no more original songs. The exceptions are the songs recorded for the Eurythmics' aborted mid-1980s movie project, reported here by a fan.
It turns out this was the soundtrack-to-be for the fabled TVP movie. It was to be set in the future when everything is just a sample of things that had already been done (Dave commented that this prediction had come true in this day and age). Annie was going to play a woman who operated a satellite that would emit all of these fragments from the past, who was slowly loosing her mind and sending out crazier and crazier stuff. The film was going to be made with George Harrison's Handmade Films label, but there was a legal battle with Harrison's partner that halted production, and it's still in litigation to this day. Dave is trying to buy back the rights to TVP so he can produce it, but the fate of the soundtrack doesn't sound good - there are no plans to release the tracks... Dave commented that it sounded "really 80's" because of the time it was made.... Lori and I thought it stood the test of time quite well!
I really, really want to hear all of the songs included on this soundtrack. I have heard one, or at least part of one. Somehow, in the course of my Audiogalaxy searches, I did find the a minute of their cover of the Smiths' "Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me". The Smiths' original is overly languid, dense. The Eurythmics' version is a fantastic improvement, dense and powerful as is their wont, with rich synth strings guiding Annie's pure vocals.
I want the remastered albums to be remastered, post-haste. I want CD quality versions of all these songs, and official lyrics. If anyone's wondering how well the remastered albums will sell, be assured that they'll sell well. They should, at least, simply on the strength of the various B-sides. I'll wait for the remasters, but for the time being, I'm terribly grateful to the Swiss for inventing the mp3 technology that lets me enjoy these B-sides, regardless of how degraded the quality.
