Eurythmics - Touch
Written by: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 14.11.1983
The third studio album by the duo "Eurythmics", "Touch", released on November 14, 1983, opens with a crystal-clear, synthesized wintry atmosphere and the strong, confident voice of Annie Lennox, on the song "Here Comes the Rain Again".
The year is 1983, and in October the Israeli bank shares crisis erupts, but that summer, at The Church studios in North London, the safest stock of all, the hottest British synth-pop duo, recorded its third album.
Yes, yes, 1983 smiled on Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox. It began in January with the album "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", which brought them their first major chart breakthrough in the form of its title track, and continued with another hit.
And right at the tail end of the year came "Touch", with the magic touch of Dave Stewart, who kept producing his musical experiments with annoying ease.
The lo-fi approach of "Eurythmics" meant that the synthesizers and drum machines needed for the writing process could be transported easily.
Suddenly Dave Stewart realized that even the hotel rooms where the duo stayed during their concert tour could be turned into a makeshift recording studio. At The Church, they finished recording and mixing the album in three weeks.
The difference between saying "I love you" and actually loving someone can be sharp, regardless of our intentions or our best feelings. It is a distinction that seemed quite familiar to Annie Lennox.
Annie Lennox sings with cruel elegance about the language of love, which left her broken. The heartbreak of language, inherent in the gap between words and actions, is the album's central lyrical theme.
Lennox told Q she had been desperately in love, and that many of her songs concerned unrequited love, as her bitter words blend well with Stewart's bittersweet music, which combines textures spanning Western music, from the pop of the 1970s to chamber music.
The second single from the album, "Right by Your Side", is without a doubt the album's standout: an optimistic, rhythmic and happy love song set against calypso music, with synthesized marimba and steel-drum sounds and horns.
All three singles marched into the top 10 of the UK chart and created a run of five consecutive singles that entered the UK top 10.
The album, which sold even better than "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", took the top spot on the UK albums chart and also did well overseas, selling a million copies in the US.
The album cover shows Annie Lennox in a pose of female power in the style of the "We Can Do It!" propaganda poster by the graphic designer J. Howard Miller, from World War II. The original poster's purpose was to be an inspiring image that boosted the morale of female workers, and it also alludes to "Rosie the Riveter", a cultural, feminist, American icon from World War II. The figure in the poster was for years associated with the worker Geraldine Hoff.
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