Birthday Number 1s: 1985 - There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)

I really love this song

There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart) - Eurythmics

which was Number 1 on my 7th birthday, although I don't remember it being Number 1 at the time. The main thing I remember about the summer of 1985 is the David Gower-led Ashes. The 4th test began on 1st August. I will have been watching that. That summer we had a holiday in a converted train carriage in Bognor Regis, and also travelling around Ireland with my dad and my sister Laura. Both holidays I spent mainly making up and scoring imaginary cricket matches - like, full cricket scoring notation, full test matches. In 1985, I was hospitalised for approaching perfection, slowly scoring my way across Ireland, they had to make a correction ... 

This song will have come to my attention on a collection of three compilation tapes which were made in 1986 by the brother of a friend of my sister's, which I believe was widely distributed around the mean streets of Ealing.

Within those three tapes was a great summary of the chart hits of the mid-80s, and was probably the most played thing in our house through 86. 87, 88.

I wish I still had those tapes, I wonder if they're stored away somewhere, and I wish I could remember everything that was on them. I had a fair crack a decade or two ago of writing down all the songs I remember, but now that's faded somewhat.

There was definitely The Word Girl by Scritti Politti. You Keep Me Hangin' On by Kim Wilde, and There Must Be An Angel by Eurythmics.

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This is Eurythmics' biggest, global, lasting hit, a much-covered, much-sampled part of the furniture, but There Must Be an Angel was their only UK Number 1, and I prefer it, its warmth, its chorus, its harmonica by Stevie Wonder. The wordless singing by Annie Lennox was, I think, one of my very favourite bits of music when I was little, and I still love it.

Eurythmics were very good, and very successful over a significant period of time. One can hardly say they're underrated, what with being in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame and all that. But maybe Annie Lennox is a little underrated? Maybe doesn't get talked about what an incredible, unique, pop star she was, say, compared to Kate Bush, Debbie Harry, even Prince or George Michael.

The style, the androgyny, the composure, the mystery, the songs, the voice, the all-round musicality. Perhaps when it became clear she was extremely nice and normal, people forgot how weird she was.

Or she was just too present for a little too long? It was a bit of a running joke that Annie Lennox just had to yawn to win a Brit Award. Her first solo album, Diva, was very very successful, and acclaimed. I remember there were a lot of singles and they all seemed to be very good. Then, after the the first track on Medusa, her second solo album, - a cover, No More I Love Yous, which didn't seem like a cover because the original was obscure - was a big, and well-liked hit, it all went south pretty quickly. People really didn't like Medusa. The NME, and several other publications, savaged it. They were covers of famous songs and it was felt she didn't do anything interesting with them. Back then, music journalism could really and truly be brutal, and have rather the same effect on an artist's reputation as a sudden twitter backlash does these days.

It has struck me, having seen Annie Lennox covering other famous songs since then, on Jools Holland or anywhere else, that she is not good at covering songs. Her voice is so outstanding, in a formal way, that it limits the material, and limits itself. She seems to go out of her way to treat other people's songs with respect.

Gosh, that turned kind of negative. On the contrary, much better to be Annie Lennox, a unique singer of their own, and little-known material, than a great covers artist of standards. In my opinion. More lucrative too, I guess. I imagine Sweet Dreams has made her and Dave as rich as two songwriters can be.

And There Must Be An Angel is my favourite of theirs, such a joyful vocal, a great tune, everything about it perfect but also unfettered. This will certainly be one of my favourite songs to be Number 1 on my birthday. Hard to see what will beat it at this point.