The original album cover art design shows Annie Lennox wearing a mask with hands clasped and her wrist folded so that her cusped fingers are facing her forehead.
I flipped that image top to bottom and left to right and both, and placed them against each other so that a set of clasped hands are set together with another from
an opposite angle and direction. The multiplication resulted in complexity but the idea was to emphasize the image of the clasped hands.
An image of clasped hands is a symbol of unity but when those two hands belong to the same person it denotes independence, isolation or even selfishness. It's another
meaning if the person in the image is looking out towards the viewer. The complexity turns to the meaning of the word "touch."
Here's Annie Lennox with hands clasped and fingers cusped - and looking out towards the viewer . . .
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| Annie Lennox by Brian Aris, from Blender Gallery |
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| Annie Lennox on the cover of Bare, from Zortam Music |
. . . and here's yet another one.
No. 221, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000; No. 492, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Art direction by Laurence Stevens, cover design by Andrew Christian & Laurence Stevens, photography by Brian Aris.
Album produced by David A. Stewart. RCA 1983.
A doctor friend of mine who was working in a sanitarium for the mildly insane told me about a card one of the patients made for Mother's Day. "To my mother," it read,
"who has always been just like a mother to me." Funny? Perhaps, but chilling, too — an oddly mordant comment on the distinction between what we call something
and what that something really is. The difference between saying "I love you" and actually loving someone can be sharp indeed, regardless of our best intentions or
feelings. It is a distinction with which Annie Lennox seems only too familiar. "The language of love," she sings with brutal elegance, "has left me broken on the rock."
The heartbreak of language — inherent in the difference between words and actions — haunts Touch, the brilliant, if erratic, new Eurythmics album. But for all of
vocalist-songwriter Lennox' semiotic perambulations, Touch relies more on instrumentalist Dave Stewart, whose synthesizer work is thankfully free of the blowsy,
ersatz-Motown touches that dominate other British technopop. Instead, Stewart incorporates textures that span Western music, from Seventies pop to chamber music.
Nowhere do Lennox' and Stewart's talents meld more stirringly than on the surging ballad "Who's That Girl?, " a clear heir to the irresistible "Sweet Dreams (Are Made
of This"). Stewart's synthesizer summons the pulsing of a string quartet, while rapping out stuttering, stick-in-your head harpsichord fills. Lennox' luscious phrasing
evokes both eroticism and anguish ("The language of love slips from my lover's tongue/Cooler than ice cream and warmer than the sun"), culminating in a chorus
of Spectorian power and simplicity that asks, "Who's that girl/Running around with you?" "Who's That Girl?" is Revolver rock, Eighties style: appealingly melodic,
lyrically intriguing and truly inventive all at once. Review by Christopher Connelly for Rolling Stone
(A) Here Comes the Rain Again - Regrets - Right by Your Side - Cool Blue - Who's That Girl
(B) The First Cut - Aqua - No Fear, No Hate, No Pain (No Broken Hearts) - Paint a Rumour
"Who's That Girl" live from EurythmicsVEVO on YouTube.
www.eurythmics.com
Back to Gallery 4
Album produced by David A. Stewart. RCA 1983.
A doctor friend of mine who was working in a sanitarium for the mildly insane told me about a card one of the patients made for Mother's Day. "To my mother," it read,
"who has always been just like a mother to me." Funny? Perhaps, but chilling, too — an oddly mordant comment on the distinction between what we call something
and what that something really is. The difference between saying "I love you" and actually loving someone can be sharp indeed, regardless of our best intentions or
feelings. It is a distinction with which Annie Lennox seems only too familiar. "The language of love," she sings with brutal elegance, "has left me broken on the rock."
The heartbreak of language — inherent in the difference between words and actions — haunts Touch, the brilliant, if erratic, new Eurythmics album. But for all of
vocalist-songwriter Lennox' semiotic perambulations, Touch relies more on instrumentalist Dave Stewart, whose synthesizer work is thankfully free of the blowsy,
ersatz-Motown touches that dominate other British technopop. Instead, Stewart incorporates textures that span Western music, from Seventies pop to chamber music.
Nowhere do Lennox' and Stewart's talents meld more stirringly than on the surging ballad "Who's That Girl?, " a clear heir to the irresistible "Sweet Dreams (Are Made
of This"). Stewart's synthesizer summons the pulsing of a string quartet, while rapping out stuttering, stick-in-your head harpsichord fills. Lennox' luscious phrasing
evokes both eroticism and anguish ("The language of love slips from my lover's tongue/Cooler than ice cream and warmer than the sun"), culminating in a chorus
of Spectorian power and simplicity that asks, "Who's that girl/Running around with you?" "Who's That Girl?" is Revolver rock, Eighties style: appealingly melodic,
lyrically intriguing and truly inventive all at once. Review by Christopher Connelly for Rolling Stone
(A) Here Comes the Rain Again - Regrets - Right by Your Side - Cool Blue - Who's That Girl
(B) The First Cut - Aqua - No Fear, No Hate, No Pain (No Broken Hearts) - Paint a Rumour
"Who's That Girl" live from EurythmicsVEVO on YouTube.
www.eurythmics.com
 |
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 |
| Next: Jimi Hendrix - Band of Gypsys |
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