| Released | 29 April 1985 |
|---|---|
| Label | RCA Records |
| Genre | New wave, soul, pop rock, synth-pop |
| Duration | 43:33 |
In 1985, as I was shedding fatuous teenage musical factionalism, I was nonetheless troubled to develop some distressing pop sensibilities.
My newfound eclecticism was tinged with an uneasy feeling that my musical loyalties lay with 1960s and 1970s rock, and this newfangled electropop I was enjoying was a bit infra dig.
Then my rock-leaning higher education college mates got copies of Eurythmics' new album, Be Yourself Tonight, assuring me that David A Stewart's guitar work was like that of Ry Cooder.
Even now, my familiarity with Cooder's music is limited to his soundtrack[1] for the 1986 movie Crossroads,[2] but the association with a guitar great quelled my remaining qualms and expanded my musical tastes into the mid-1980s.
Sure enough, Be Yourself Tonight has Stewart riffing away like a proper rocker from the get-go in the album's opener and its debut single, Would I Lie to You?
Ecstatic scat
When it comes to an album's standout track, I'm becoming increasingly iconoclastic; repeated listens drive me to indifference.
This isn't entirely true of There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart).
I'm unlikely to seek out Be Yourself Tonight's second single and Eurythmics' biggest UK hit, but won't skip it if streaming serves it up randomly.
Annie Lennox's ecstatic scat and Stevie Wonder's jaunty harmonica solo sparkle with enough energy to keep the song fresh, even four decades on.
The leg iron of love
I Love You Like a Ball and Chain might not have had the hooks to qualify it for a single release, but encounters with the figurative shackle always bring the song to mind.
It's likely to have cued on my mental jukebox when I saw an upcoming groom encumbered by mediaeval leg irons at his stag party in Bristol's Old Duke pub in the late 1980s or early 1990s.
I drew inspiration from this premarital prank in my play Bacon Sandwich, transferring the fetter to the script's bride-to-be.
The play doesn't feature the song, but the track is a link in the synaptic chain that inspired it.
Duet duo
The album's third single is the second to feature US soul royalty, with Lennox duetting with Aretha Franklin.
Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves ought to be less of a feminist anthem now than in 1985 — the proud claim that women are ‘doctors, lawyers, politicians too’ certainly seems less remarkable than it might have done 40 years ago!
Had I needed further familiar musical territory to assure me it was okay to experiment with a pop sensibility, it's there with Be Yourself Tonight's second duet.
Elvis Costello appeared in the charts that shaped my musical tastes, and his album Armed Forces[3] was an early home taping recruit. And here he was, six years later, lending his distinctive vocals to Side Two's second track, Adrian.
Singles raise an album's stock
Be Yourself Tonight's quartet of singles spanned spring to winter 1985. Would I Lie to You? augured the album with a 9 April release, reaching number 17 on the UK Singles Chart.[4] There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart) was a summer hit released on 24 June. It is Eurythmics' only British number one.[5] Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves had an autumn release on 21 October, achieving a number nine chart position.[6] Finally, It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back) climbed to number 12 in the UK following its release on 30 December 1985.[7]
It surprises me a little now that there was so much mileage for singles from the album, not because the songs weren't strong enough for single release, but because those issued after being available on the LP for months still showed strong chart performances.
Would I Lie to You? having the weakest chart performance counters my thinking that singles were a form of promotion for the LPs on which they featured, like flyers for a gig.
If this were the case, a single release in advance of a new album by an established chart act like Eurythmics should have attracted bigger sales to fans keen to get their hands on new material.
Be Yourself Tonight's debut single wasn't its strongest, and its relatively poor showing despite its novelty might well reflect this.
45s were the only way to cherry-pick an album (short of borrowing a copy and taping the prime cuts), but single releases were part of what made tracks ‘cherries’.
There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart) is the pick of the bunch, as confirmed by its chart-topping success.
The charms of Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves might well have been enhanced by the presence of Aretha Franklin, securing the song its top-ten position.
It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back), a less obvious choice, reached number 12 eight months after the album's release, suggesting demand for singles even when already available on albums.
I prefer albums because singles are too high-maintenance. If you're going to put on a record, it's better to get around 20 minutes of listening time for your trouble than the five or so minutes afforded by a single.
For album buyers, multiple hit single releases raised the stock of LPs, making them bowls of cherries instead of presenting lone fruit among stones.
Essential Eurythmics
Apple Music includes Be Yourself Tonight with 1983's Touch[8] and Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)[9] in its list of essential Eurythmics albums. The two earlier releases show the duo at their electropop best, but Be Yourself Tonight builds on this legacy with a wider generic and instrumental range. If you listen to just one Eurythmics album…
And hearing Be Yourself Tonight on vinyl won't break the bank. It was certified double platinum in the UK with sales over 600,000,[10] so there are plenty of well-kept copies available at reasonable prices.
Forty years after its release, Be Yourself Tonight feels more of its time than other albums that transcend their debut era.
This could be because I was an active record buyer when it came out, and so it has stronger temporal resonances for me than records I discovered years after their first issue.
Notes and references