In March 1985, Neil Tennant stopped being a music journalist. Pet Shop Boys had signed to Parlophone EMI and were readying a release of their first 45 for the label – the accidentally Thatcherite mantra Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money).
However, just before he handed in his pen and ink, the PSB frontman was sent to France on one last overseas assignment: an interview over dinner with a “lethargic” Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart in gay Paree.
Eurythmics – for it is they – were putting the finishing touches to what Annie would later describe as “a sort of rock ’n roll album”, Be Yourself Tonight, which has been reissued today as a depressingly limited edition kitsch picture disc for that Record Store Day malarkey.
There‘s a nice circularity about the piece, as, as far as I can determine, Tennant’s first interview article for Smash Hits was with that other female/male pop duo, pervy or otherwise, Yazoo, almost three years earlier, in the spring of 1982.
It wasn’t all plain sailing though. Neil later recounted that Annie was a trifle patronising when he let slip he was in a pop duo of his own and intended to do it for themselves any day now. Perhaps his lukewarm review of the previous year’s Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four) might have played its part?
C’est Eurythmics N’est Pas?
Neil Tennant, Smash Hits, 28 March 1985
Of course it is, mes petits choux-choux. And they’re in Paris (hence the Eiffel Tower — trés brilliant, non?). Annie and Dave are making un album nouveau, buying houses dans les montagnes and turning down offers to advertise just about everything under le soleil. Neil Tennant drinks beaucoup de peppermint tea. And listens.
IT’S TEN o’clock on a sunny but chilly Sunday morning in Paris. Not a very posh area of Paris either.
There’s a dingy but rather cosy complex of rooms here where pop groups rehearse and dancers practise their steps swathed in legwarmers and leotards. In a little coffee bar, somebody plays with a pinball machine while a granite bust of someone obscure nicked from a nearby cemetery sits on the floor. And in another room lots of funny French film posters have been taped to the waifs.
There’s an electric piano with Christmas-tree fairy lights crawling over it and. by the door, stands an old wooden statue of a black waiter wearing a bowler hat. Guitars and synthesizers are scattered around. None of your posh Power Stations for Eurythmics, matey. This cosy room is where Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox are recording their NEW ALBUM!
In the coffee bar, Annie is being made up before having some photos taken. She shakes my hand limply. Oh dear, I don’t think she’s in a very good mood. Then Dave Stewart appears looking a touch tetchy. Oh dear.
Sandra, a friend of theirs who also works for them, busily makes sandwiches out of crusty French bread and salad and rustles up some peppermint tea. Eurythmics seem to have a close, family-ish organisation which keeps their affairs running smoothly and stops them going bonkers.
They are, after all, one of the most famous groups in the world. In America, Annie is regarded as a sort of female Boy George and treated as a huge star. They’re continually in the news with, for instance, Annie’s sudden marriage and move to Switzerland, and the storm over their soundtrack for the film 1984 which the film’s director did not want to use.
Yet, in spite of their fame, here they are, as bohemian as ever, working in these unglamorous surroundings. Thankfully, they seem to be cheering up now. Annie’s munching on her salad sarnie.
“Come on, Neil!” she says boisterously, a little like a teacher. “Let’s do this interview.” And we wander into the room with the posters, the synthesizers and the fairy lights. Dave follows not far behind.
Why are you in this funny little studio and not somewhere more flash?
Dave: It’s just to do with the original concept of Eurythmics which was to keep changing every situation all the time so it never got stale. In order to make this album we had to do a load of work even to make it into a studio and it’s like an adventure, like building your own house or something.
Annie: We just wanted a big space where we could make a lot of noise. And we wanted a nice atmosphere so I went out and bought a load of posters and stuck them up to break the monotony of the four walls.
Do you worry about recording lots of possible hit singles to follow up the ones you’ve already had?
Annie: What we like to do is make commercial music that is very special, so it can be commercial but also very individual. We’re always looking for something really fresh. It’s a bit like mining for gold but now with the idea of loot at the end of it. I’m talking in artistic terms.
(And they play me a beautiful new song called, I think, There Must Be An Angel Playing With My Heart which sounds very “fresh”, pure and uplifting, and undoubtedly like a hit.)
How do you feel about the whole 1984 film fiasco now? What went wrong?
Dave: In a nutshell, we were asked to write the music for 1984. We delivered the music and we heard that the director or the producer didn’t want to put our music on the film. We then heard that this other guy had already written the soundtrack for it nine months before and we thought, oh well, we’d rather not have our music on the film if somebody doesn’t want it; we’ll keep it for ourselves. Then they agreed to give us the film to put in our video and then I was really confused and I thought, hello, the director doesn’t want to put our music in his film but he wants to put his film in our video in order to sell the film. And at that point we just stopped talking to them. And then he went round the world, almost doing a tour, saying Eurythmics ruined my film and all that. We just couldn’t believe it. We could have gone round after him saying, no we didn’t, but it was ridiculous.
Annie: So we made a statement and I feel that most people know that we are credible. It’s sad really because it was lovely, we really enjoyed making it. I think it’s a marvellous album.
Are you rich?
Dave: Yeah, we are.
Does that embarrass you?
Annie: There’s no reason why I should be embarrassed about being rich because in the past we were badly ripped off. We’ve paid our dues financially more than anybody else I’ve ever met, actually. I’m not the kind of person who wants to have big status symbols, Rolls Royces, and flash around showing my Yves Saint Laurent watch. There are certain movements that I would like to become part of. I’m very much against animals being exploited and I’m planning to get involved with that. This is a new thing for me to have money, the first time I’ve ever had money in the bank.
Dave: I just have a great time now, whereas before I used to find it difficult because I never had any money to have a great time. When I had this squat I used to have a fantastic time — just a different kind of great time. I think the great thing for me is that it allows me to travel when I want to and where I want to without worrying about it.
Do people treat you differently now?
Dave: It’s funny how some people’s attitudes change. I remember on Christmas Eve, I’d just come from playing with Strawberry Switchblade and I went back to the local pub.
I always think, no, I won’t go in, because I get a funny attitude off people sometimes. Either they’re really friendly and trap you in a corner and tell you they’re in a group and would you like a tape of them? Or you get people in the bar saying ‘Oh, who’s a superstar now?’ I was really dressed up but I thought, I don’t care, I’m just going to go to my local pub and have a drink. But I had people coming up and saying, ‘Oh, you’re a superstar now’ — every aspect you imagine you could get. I really want to be able to go into the local pub but I’m really frightened now. It always turns into a similar thing: it turns into an interview.
Annie: I don’t get bothered by people because, whatever they say about me, whatever they think, it doesn’t matter ’cause I’m doing my thing anyway. People are either going to love you or hate you and my life doesn’t depend on that. I know who my friends are.
Is your fame difficult to live with?
Annie: Yes, it can be very difficult to live with.
Dave: Surprisingly enough, though, in the last seven months I’m the person they recognise much more.
Annie: People don’t recognise me now.
Dave: Especially now as they think: Annie Lennox, red hair. Since she’s had blonde hair she can walk around anywhere. She can go out sometimes with a hat on and certain different make-up and they don’t recognise her. It’s a bit difficult for me to change. It’s easier for a woman to change the way she looks.
Annie: When you’re famous, it’s a bit like having an extra leg. You can’t forget about it because other people don’t let you forget about it — there’s always an extra thing around you.
What sort of offers do you get nowadays?
Annie: Well, we do get a lot of offers. We turn most of them down. We get offers to do soundtracks for films, Dave gets a lot of offers to produce different people. We get offers to endorse clothes, make-up, cars and all sorts of things like that. Offers for television programmes, offers for interviews, offers to make music for plays.
Are you going to make any films?
Annie: I’m thinking about having a part in a film that’s coming out quite soon but there’s not much point in talking about it, because it’s not finalised yet.
Where do you live these days?
Dave: I’ve just bought a house in Maida Vale and I just bought an apartment here (Paris) as well. It’s a really classic old French house. I’m still really going to be based in London but it’s only an hour to come here. See, my mother married a Frenchman and my brother worked for the British Film Institute and he has to come to Paris all the time so there’s a lot of connections. I’ve just been looking at the plans to my house in London and I’ve built a gymnasium in the basement and there’s a Jacuzzi and a sauna and a steam thing.
Annie: I have a house in Switzerland and I have a little flat as well but I see London as my base really and Switzerland is the sort of place to go maybe one month of the year when it’s hot. A place that, if I ever have kids or my friends really want to get away or my family — that will be the sort of place. I mean, for years and years I lived in abject poverty and now I’m so rich that I have to buy mountain houses!
It’s on a mountain?
Annie: Yes. You get to the airstrip and then there’s a mountain and then you zig-zag for about 50 minutes up this mountain, thinking every minute that your life’s in someone else’s hands and there’s this very tiny village, a sort of medieval village. It’s not an opulent house, it’s quite big, very old, and sort of farmyardish. It’s very beautiful and it has a nice view and after I’ve been there for a week I’m so bored. I’ve got to get away. Maybe when I’m a little older and I’m making pots or breeding chickens or something rural, I’ll spend a bit more time there, but I think I’ll be mainly in London.
Did you move there because your husband lives there?
Annie: Partly because of that and partly because I wanted a place in Europe that had some sun and it’s right on the Italian border.
Dave: I think you should do a competition and get 50 Smash Hits winners to go there for their holidays!
Annie: Oh, thanks a lot, Dave! Join Annie Lennox and the goats!
© Neil Tennant, 1985
Introduction by Steve Pafford, 2025
33 at 33: Eurythmics say Be Yourself Tonight is here
