Many fans ve written a piece about Savage for us to publish throughout November, today’s piece is written by Lynne Foster. If you’d like to be featured here, just drop us an email to webmaster@eurythmics-ultimate.com with your contribution.
Take me to the desert where there’s got to be a whole heap of nothing for you & me.
As a longtime member and moderator of the Eurythmics Yahoo group, I have often been asked to state my favorite album. I am unable to offer a definitive answer. I consider each of these works as a musical offspring of the Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart collaboration. So, how can one choose? You love them all for what they are as individuals. But Savage would be the most woeful of the progeny. She is a girl. Indeed, she is a wide-eyed girl of a tender age. She looks up at you with tortured eyes and frightens you a bit. She also is the one who digs a place in your soul with such rawness it is difficult to explain or ponder. It cuts that deep.
I always thought (and still do) Savage was the most personal of all the Eurythmics albums as it conjures most of what it appeared life was to them at that time. Fame had affected them in a massive way. And it certainly wasn’t all good. Rather, quite the opposite. Love had been cruel, as well. To listen to Savage, is to be transported to a painful place. It is not an easy listen. Unquestionably, Annie was suffering through many issues. Dave matches her intensity. His solo on the eponymous song on Savage is, in my opinion, one of rock’s coldest and erotic-feeling guitar riffs. In fact, Savage is distinctly the most sexual of Dave and Annie’s albums. Several songs actually evoke the act itself in cadence and tone, rising and falling away. (This was certainly the intent with the live performance of I Need You in the We Too Are One tour. A version is included as Bonus Track of the 2006 premastered CD.)
I am always struck at the brilliance of the underappreciated song Shame and still wistful of the loss of it not becoming a radio hit. It is even more relevant today as people covet lifestyle chic at the cost of their integrity and soul. The video for Shame sits in my memory bank almost frozen in time. It is a grainy piece, like a fast moving piece of art. Annie is lying back in Dave’s arms. They are both defiant and vulnerable in their nudity. They sing together as this song belongs to both of them. The betrayal is clearly on both of their faces. At the song’s conclusion, Annie is overcome with anguish. Dave shields her eyes from her horror. He nearly snarls at the camera, “We loved you.” And then, like children in a lullaby, the two lean against one another exhausted.
In taking a fresh look at Savage, I am amazed at it all. It is a brilliant child, now 25 years old. How could a quarter of a century have gone by in a heartbeat? I am pleased that Annie and Dave seem in a better place now. No less a miracle, I am too.
It’s a Brand New Day. And the world said, “Hey.”
Lynne Foster
Portland, Oregon USA