Eurythmics -- Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

 

On this Reminiscings of Youth article, it's time to revisit the X-Men.

Yeah, I can't say that "X-Men: Apocalypse" was one of the better entries in that franchise, but there was that awesome and hilarious sequence with Quicksilver saving Professor X's students, a pizza-gnawing dog and a goldfish.

However, the sweet icing on that special-effects cake was "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by Eurythmics which for me was one of the primo songs of the 1980s. The first time that I saw the classic video with Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, my jaw just dropped at the figure of Lennox in the short-cropped fiery orange-red hair looking like the world's most powerful corporate dominatrix while her partner typed quietly at the computer. I was terrified and hooked at the same time.

Also, having been on my synthpop kick at the time thanks to Yellow Magic Orchestra, Depeche Mode and Gary Numan among others at the time, it was extremely easy to get drawn into the synthesized rhythms of "Sweet Dreams" along with Annie's rich soulful voice. Plus her presence in the video is truly attractive on the level of a magnet the size of a truck (it basically made her an overnight sensation). It didn't hurt either that the latter half of the video comes across as a dream to be analyzed, and I'm also including the cow in there.

From what I've read of the background behind "Sweet Dreams", the song was made from the despair that Lennox had felt after seeing her and Stewart's previous band The Tourists break up and therefore their own dreams fizzle away, although Stewart allowed some hope by adding the lines "hold your head up, moving on". Well, as I've encountered in many an anecdote, the adversity brought about success as "Sweet Dreams", their 2nd single from January 1983 (UK), hit No. 2 on the UK Singles chart and then No. 1 on Billboard once the song got its release in America later that May.

Eurythmics came out with some other great numbers but it will always be "Sweet Dreams" when that band's name comes up in my memories.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a ROY article on Randy Newman's "I Love L.A." which also came out in that same month of January 1983. So this time, instead of relying on the Oricon chart, I'll go with the Showa Pops Singles History once more to show what was also coming out at around the same time. At least a couple of the songs below were reported to have come out actually in November 1982 but they have shown up on SPSH in January 1983.

Akiko Kanazawa -- Yellow Submarine Ondo（イエロー・サブマリン音頭）

Shinichi Mori -- Fuyu no Riviera （冬のリヴィエラ）

Kaoru Hirose -- Information Love