Forty-five years ago, on 16 October 1981, Eurythmics released their debut album In the Garden on RCA Records. It barely sold at the time, but it is the record where Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart first found their way from guitar pop towards the electronic sound that would make them stars.
The story starts at a New Year’s Eve party. Fresh out of the Tourists, the duo were guests of producer Conny Plank at his studio near Cologne, where they jammed with D.A.F. drummer Robert Görl and listened to music with Can’s Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit. Plank pushed them to record demos and secured the RCA deal that followed.
The sessions ran from January to May 1981, while Plank was also working with Ultravox. Görl, Czukay and Liebezeit all play on the album, and Lennox talked Blondie drummer Clem Burke into coming to Germany to add drums. Stewart sold two of his guitars and bought a Roland TR-606 drum machine, a Space Echo and a synthesiser, and Plank, Czukay and Liebezeit taught him to fold found sounds into the mix: playground noise in English Summer, a typewriter in She’s Invisible Now.
Lennox and Stewart wrote all ten songs, with Roger Pomphrey co-writing English Summer and Caveman Head. The tracklist runs English Summer, Belinda, Take Me to Your Heart, She’s Invisible Now, Your Time Will Come, Caveman Head, Never Gonna Cry Again, All the Young (People of Today), Sing-Sing and Revenge.
Neither the album nor its two singles made much impact. Never Gonna Cry Again stalled at number 63 in the UK, Belinda sank without trace, and In the Garden did not chart at all. The costly sessions pushed the pair towards a leaner approach: Stewart produced the follow-up Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) alone around a drum machine and synth, and its title track topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1983.
RCA reissued In the Garden in 2005 with the singles’ B-sides and three live tracks. The video above is the Never Gonna Cry Again video from Dave Stewart’s official YouTube channel.
In the Garden on Apple Music – https://music.apple.com/us/album/in-the-garden/275435687
In the Garden on Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/album/2PCkafTVdYB8S1zLlxthxg
Official video on YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnzfkX6H9lE
Eurythmics official site – https://www.eurythmics.com/music/in-the-garden/
Side-Line – https://www.side-line.com/eurythmics-in-the-garden-turns-45/
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