The Miracle Of Love

Album: Revenge (1986)
Charted: 23
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Many Eurythmics songs - "Love Is A Stranger" comes to mind - deal with the cutting edge of love, but this one celebrates its joy and healing powers. Released as a single from their fifth album, Revenge, it wasn't a huge hit but showed lots of staying power, becoming one of Eurythmics' most popular songs in the streaming era.
  • As usual, this song was a collaboration between the two members of Eurythmics, Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox. Stewart's musical brain never really shuts down, and one day he was in his kitchen at his home in London when he came up with the riff on acoustic guitar (the kitchen had a stone floor and he liked the reverb). He wrote the chords and the line "The miracle of love will take away your pain."

    The next time he got together with Lennox, he played it for her and right away she came up with the melody and verse lyric. They had Michael Kamen arrange strings for the song and came up with a soaring instrumental section for the middle. Lennox capped it by ad-libbing some vocals at the end.
  • Stewart credits Lennox' vocal for giving the song its emotional punch. "Not only does Annie have a very distinctive sound to her voice, she has another element which is soaked in emotion and can literally move people to tears," he wrote in The Dave Stewart Songbook. "It's a mixture of the sound she makes with her voice and the fact that she come from Aberdeen, Scotland, where the musical heritage is littered with haunting airs. It is hard to explain how such sadness and beauty can come from the melodies and chord changes in Scottish or Irish airs, you just have to listen to them and feel it."
  • Dave Stewart directed the video along with Billy Poveda, shooting it on an 8mm camera to give it a gritty look. As Lennox sings, we see war footage cut in, providing a stark contrast between the words and images. Every time Lennox sings the line "the miracle of love," we see an atomic bomb explosion, which Stewart calls "the ultimate juxtaposition."
  • Annie Lennox is very shy but an excellent actress, as she proved in so many Eurythmics videos. "The Miracle Of Love" includes a rare candid shot of her that Dave Stewart captured with a long lens when she didn't know she was being filmed. This shot, where she lets out a little laugh, appears at the end of the clip.
  • Eurythmics often played this song as the closing number at their concerts, sending the fans home with a very emotional performance. "People were always crying," Dave Stewart told Songfacts.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

90s Metal

90s MetalFact or Fiction

Test your metal - Priest, Maiden, and Beavis and Butt-head show up in this one.

Jonathan Edwards - "Sunshine"

Jonathan Edwards - "Sunshine"They're Playing My Song

"How much does it cost? I'll buy it?" Another songwriter told Jonathan to change these lyrics. Good thing he ignored this advice.

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Creedence Clearwater RevivalFact or Fiction

Is "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" about Vietnam? Was John Fogerty really born on a Bayou? It's the CCR edition of Fact or Fiction.

Charlie Daniels

Charlie DanielsSongwriter Interviews

Charlie discusses the songs that made him a Southern Rock icon, and settles the Devil vs. Johnny argument once and for all.

The Punk Photography of Chris Stein

The Punk Photography of Chris SteinSong Writing

Chris Stein of Blondie shares photos and stories from his book about the New York City punk scene.

Into The Great Wide Open: Made-up Musicians

Into The Great Wide Open: Made-up MusiciansSong Writing

Eddie (played by Johnny Depp in the video) found fame fleeting, but Chuck Berry's made-up musician fared better.