Podunkian Music Club

Annie Lennox-Dark Road



Ever since we first heard Annie Lennox sing with The Tourists in the late seventies, it’s been about her emotion and her voice.

She has one of the most powerful deliveries in music, an amazing ability to pull you into whatever story she is weaving. A listener sits entranced by her vocal ranges, her styling of a phrase and the vivid imagery that her music leaves you with.

Lennox has a new solo recording out now, Songs of Mass Destruction, and for the Music Club tonight, we have selected Dark Road the first release from it.

It’s a fable of life's road traveled, not always clear in direction, a single traveler in search of something that seems at times to be far off and unattainable. The haunting opening with its simple musical accompaniment, is just the right mix with Lennox’s marvelous voice.

As the song builds up and reaches a sense of urgency, the drama of that moment is perfectly reflected in her lyrics and passion for them.

Now in her mid fifties, she is still perhaps one of the finest of singers around and while the numerous pop princesses have long since come and gone, her music is as dynamic today as when she and Dave Lennox were ruling the music universe as the Eurythmics. The pair had met during those days with the Tourists and left in the eighties to form one of the most significant groups to come out of Europe in that decade.

Their music brought a completely different sound for that era and was widely accepted and commercially successful. Part of their success was the honesty of their songs, a raw nerve that at times seemed to take its toll on the duo. They have been an off and on project ever since the early nineties, including a lengthy period of time where there was no communication at all between the two. A rapprochement came about in 1999 and since that time they have managed to produce both group and solo projects.

That honesty in lyrics and song has been a trait that has been repeated through the decades with her solo efforts, music that simply leaves you hoping for more and more.

It’s a long and treasured catalogue that her music has delivered over the years, each and every song, whether with a group or as a solo artist has its own relevance to the listener.

We share an emotional journey when we hit the play button, almost voyeuristic as we travel down this dark road with her.

It's a stark journey, one which she says she’s walking by herself, but it’s also one that takes us along, sharing a troubled soul’s walk looking for a sign of hope and a desire to make things better. Dark Road is an amazing song, an open book of emotion that makes you want to play it over and over again.

Artist- Annie Lennox
Recording- Songs of Mass Destruction