So It’s An Obsession

Eurythmics “Love Is A Stranger”

Annie Lennox is doing her best to warn people off of love in this song, hard-selling the addictive and destructive side-effects of falling in love the way you might advise someone to stay away from crack or heroin. She is so insistent and specific about what it does to you that at some point it feels like a reverse psychology ploy – why yes, I would like to be distorted and deranged and wrenched up and left like a zombie! It sounds a lot more interesting than this totally blah life I’ve got going at the moment.

Dave Stewart’s track is built around this steady pulse that feels overtly sexual, but also paranoid and anxious. It sounds like the obsession Lennox is singing about, suggesting a one track mind that’s plagued by doubt and guilt. There’s flashes of delicacy and loveliness, and Lennox’s voice is often totally gorgeous, but it mostly sounds dark and lurid, like getting inside the mind of someone kinda gross and scary. And I think that’s the point here – you’re supposed to see yourself in this feeling, and recognize how icky and damaged it is. This isn’t really about “love,” of course – love isn’t like this at all – but it’s a very accurate depiction of something it’s often confused with.

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