The Eurythmics were vocalist Annie Lennox and instrumentalist Dave Stewart. Both were members of The Tourists before forming Eurythmics in 1980. They met when Lennox was working as a waitress in Stewart's home town of Sunderland; they lived together for four years before forming Eurythmics and ending their romantic relationship while forging ahead as a duo. Writing and recording as ex-lovers created an interesting tension in their songs.
In our interview with Dave Stewart, he explains that creating a melancholy mood in his songs is something he excels at. Says Stewart: "'Here Comes The Rain Again' is kind of a perfect one where it has a mixture of things, because I'm playing a b-minor, but then I change it to put a b-natural in, and so it kind of feels like that minor is suspended, or major. So it's kind of a weird course. And of course that starts the whole song, and the whole song was about that undecided thing, like here comes depression, or here comes that downward spiral. But then it goes, 'so talk to me like lovers do.' It's the wandering in and out of melancholy, a dark beauty that sort of is like the rose that's when it's darkest unfolding and blood red just before the garden, dies. And capturing that in kind of oblique statements and sentiments."
Instead of the conventional verse-chorus-verse, this song alternates an A section ("Here comes the rain again?") and a B section ("So baby talk to me?") with very little variation between repetitions - just a short instrumental bridge in the middle of the song. This creates the feeling of monotony, as the rain keeps falling.
The Eurythmics were named after a mime performed by Emile Jacques-Dalcrose. They had nine UK Top 10 hits and three in the US, including the #1 "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)." In 1987, Stewart married Siobhan Fahey of Bananarama. Lennox left in 1990 but the pair reunited in 1999.
In The Dave Stewart Songbook, Stewart explains that he and Lennox wrote this song when they were staying at the Mayflower Hotel in New York City. Writes Stewart: "I'd been out on 46th Street and bought an early Casio keyboard, about 20 inches long with very small keys. It was an overcast day. Annie was sitting in my room, and I was playing some little riff on the keyboard sitting on the window ledge, and I was playing these little melancholy A minor-ish chords with the B note in it. I kept on playing this riff, and Annie was looking out the window at the slate grey sky above the New York skyline and just sang spontaneously, 'Here Comes The Rain Again.' And that was all we needed. you see, like with a lot of our songs, you only need to start with that one line, and that one atmosphere, that one note, or that intro melody. And the rest of it was like a puzzle where we needed to just fill in the missing pieces."
This was recorded in an old church that was converted into a studio - except the studio wasn't finished yet and they brought in the orchestra anyway. About 30 string players had to improvise by playing in corridors and even the toilet. The song was mixed blending the orchestra on top of electronic sounds created by a sequencer and drum machine.
The video was shot at the Orkney islands in Scotland, where Annie Lennox is seen performing the song in and around a scuppered ship. The whole time, we see Dave Stewart recording her with a video camera, appearing to stalk her. "The videos all express an interior world going on between me and Dave — emotional tensions," Lennox told Q magazine in 1991.
The line, "Talk to me like lovers do" shows up in the 2007 song "Taking Chances," which Stewart wrote with Kara DioGuardi.
Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn March 10th 1984, the video for the Eurythmics' "Here Comes the Rain Again" was aired on the ABC-TV program 'American Bandstand'... At the time the song was at #8 on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; fifteen days later on March 25th, 1984 it would peak at #4 for two weeks... It reached #8 in both the United Kingdom and Ireland... Between 1982 and 1989 the duo had fifteen Top 100 records; three made the Top 10 with one reaching #1, "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)"* for one week on August 28th, 1983... * Before peaking at #1 "Sweet Dreams" spent four weeks at #2, and for all four of those weeks the #1 record was "Every Breathe You Take" by the Police.
Cyberpope from Richmond, CanadaI thought of "talk to me like lovers do" was addressing the rain, & asking it to be soft & gentle. . .
Esskayess from Dallas, TxAlways loved the instrumentation in this song, but why did Lennox have to constantly sound like a monotone computer? She obviously had a good voice, but I often disliked the way she used it.
Jim from Boston, MaGod, the pipes on that woman. Stunning.
Guy from Woodinville, WaA beautiful, simple, hypnotic song. They must get sick of performing it, though.
Jim from North Billerica, MaI saw them perform this live during their "Touch" tour in 1984 and all I can say is, what a performance! Annie Lennox has such an amazing voice that it almost became a surrealistic moment. I still remember it like it was yesterday.
Rafael from Paris, FranceThis song is the proof that music don't have to be complicated to be really beautiful.
