It took a while for me to warm up to the Eurythmics in the 80s but I did. Here Comes the Rain Again peaked at #4 in the Billboard 100 in 1984. Annie Lennox’s voice is so distinguishable, strong, and versatile that they didn’t have just one style. They did this and then the next year they had the more R&B song Would I Lie To You.
Here Comes The Rain Again was recorded in an old church that was converted into a studio – except the studio wasn’t finished yet and they brought in the orchestra anyway. About 30 string players had to improvise by playing in corridors and even the toilet. The song was mixed blending the orchestra on top of electronic sounds created by a sequencer and drum machine.
From Songfacts
The Eurythmics were vocalist Annie Lennox and instrumentalist Dave Stewart. Both were members of The Tourists before forming Eurythmics in 1980. They met when Lennox was working as a waitress in Stewart’s home town of Sunderland; they lived together for four years before forming Eurythmics and ending their romantic relationship while forging ahead as a duo. Writing and recording as ex-lovers created an interesting tension in their songs.
In our interview with Dave Stewart, he explains that creating a melancholy mood in his songs is something he excels at. Says Stewart: “‘Here Comes The Rain Again’ is kind of a perfect one where it has a mixture of things, because I’m playing a b-minor, but then I change it to put a b-natural in, and so it kind of feels like that minor is suspended, or major. So it’s kind of a weird course. And of course that starts the whole song, and the whole song was about that undecided thing, like here comes depression, or here comes that downward spiral. But then it goes, ‘so talk to me like lovers do.’ It’s the wandering in and out of melancholy, a dark beauty that sort of is like the rose that’s when it’s darkest unfolding and blood red just before the garden, dies. And capturing that in kind of oblique statements and sentiments.”
Instead of the conventional verse-chorus-verse, this song alternates an A section (“Here comes the rain again?”) and a B section (“So baby talk to me?”) with very little variation between repetitions – just a short instrumental bridge in the middle of the song. This creates the feeling of monotony, as the rain keeps falling.
The Eurythmics were named after a mime performed by Emile Jacques-Dalcrose. They had nine UK Top 10 hits and three in the US, including the #1 “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” In 1987, Stewart married Siobhan Fahey of Bananarama. Lennox left in 1990 but the pair reunited in 1999.
In The Dave Stewart Songbook, Stewart explains that he and Lennox wrote this song when they were staying at the Mayflower Hotel in New York City. Writes Stewart: “I’d been out on 46th Street and bought an early Casio keyboard, about 20 inches long with very small keys. It was an overcast day. Annie was sitting in my room, and I was playing some little riff on the keyboard sitting on the window ledge, and I was playing these little melancholy A minor-ish chords with the B note in it. I kept on playing this riff, and Annie was looking out the window at the slate grey sky above the New York skyline and just sang spontaneously, ‘Here Comes The Rain Again.’ And that was all we needed. you see, like with a lot of our songs, you only need to start with that one line, and that one atmosphere, that one note, or that intro melody. And the rest of it was like a puzzle where we needed to just fill in the missing pieces.”
The video was shot at the Orkney islands in Scotland, where Annie Lennox is seen performing the song in and around a scuppered ship. The whole time, we see Dave Stewart recording her with a video camera, appearing to stalk her. “The videos all express an interior world going on between me and Dave — emotional tensions,” Lennox told Q magazine in 1991.
The line, “Talk to me like lovers do” shows up in the 2007 song “Taking Chances,” which Stewart wrote with Kara DioGuardi.
Here Comes The Rain Again
Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion
I want to walk in the open wind
I want to talk like lovers do
I want to dive into your ocean
Is it raining with you
So baby talk to me
Like lovers do
Walk with me
Like lovers do
Talk to me
Like lovers do
Here comes the rain again
Raining in my head like a tragedy
Tearing me apart like a new emotion
Oh
I want to breathe in the open wind
I want to kiss like lovers do
I want to dive into your ocean
Is it raining with you
So baby talk to me
Like lovers do
Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion
(Here is comes again, here it comes again)
I want to walk in the open wind
I want to talk like lovers do
I want dive into your ocean
Is it raining with you
The Eurythmics fascinate me. I sort of liked this song, but like most of theirs, it was slightly too eerie for my taste.
I did love their song, ‘Love is a Stranger’. They produced interesting music, and they had Annies voice.
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They were diverse no doubt. My favorite was “Would I Lie To You”… that is when I thought… that is more my style
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The Eurythmics made it easy for me to start liking New Wave music.
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It took a while for me… “Would I Lie To You” was the one that opened the door for me
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Something odd about the Eurythmics, to me. I knew I SHOULD like them, I love Annie’s voice, I was a fan of new wave… but somehow I just never liked them much. I didn’t despise them, just somehow never was especially fond of their songs. I dont mind hearing ones like this one from time to time though. They both had real talent, that’s for sure
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The song I really like is Would I Lie To You… They do have a lot of talent…and good songwriters.
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Annie Lennox has a face that could launch a thousand ships. Add the rest of her talent in there and it’s amazing she hasn’t gone way farther than she has. Dave’s no slouch either. They put out some fine tunes, this is one of them.
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Would I Lie To You is my favorite but I like this one a lot. They were different.
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They made some good videos too. What do you think of this one:
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She looked completely different…she has such a voice
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Her voice and how many looks she has is really cool. I like the video for “Would I Lie to You” also.
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I haven’t see it in a long time…thanks… That is the Annie Lennox I remember with the short hair.
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Awesome music. My faves are “Love Is A Stranger” & “Who’s That Girl”.
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I need to revisit them again….the one that got me into them is Would I Lie To You… I haven’t listened to them for years
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She has an incredible voice. Her gender bending in the 80s was fascinating.
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Yes a different look everytime I saw her
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