Go ahead and pray all you want, Ricky. We’ll still be playing the devil’s music today.
Has another weekend of sin made you looking to repent on Monday? Well, The Nest is here with divine intervention in the form of another heavenly earworm from music’ past! This is our holy day that where we leave an offering at that shrine of forever damned lost hits we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive! DJ Scratchy’s got her nun outfit on that would be more fitting for a college Halloween party, while the Sponkies practice this song with the choir. It’s time to praise the lord and pass the amplifiers…
The Eurythmics are one of the 80’s more recognizable and well known duos. Singer Annie Lennox sporting a short haircut and a business suit is one of the iconic images of the era when sweet dreams were made of MTV. Along with the eccentric Dave Stewart, the two recorded a whole string of hits in the early to mid 80’s that we all know and love…
Would I lie to you?
As the 80’s progressed, The Eurythmics eventually moved away from their initial new wave/electronic sound that composed their breakthrough hits and began enlisting more of a live band sound with a heavy R&B influence. That led to songs like “Missionary Man,” which in 1986 became the group’s last US Top 20 hit, peaking at #14.
Oh, and it has a crazy video…
In 1984, Lennox began a short-lived marriage to a devout Hare Krishna, whose constant preaching must have really gotten to her. “Missionary Man” is a tribute to all of those people who consider themselves to occupy a pulpit over us, and the persuasively snakelike ways they try to exert their power and influence on the masses.
Not all missionary men are enlisted by God…
You gotta love the harmonica playing in this song (this is the video Magic Dick should have been in!), as well as the videos stop motion gimmicks that make you worry if Annie is actually having a seizure. And of course, there’s that word in the title….. “missionary,” which I’ve heard has….. well, an alternate meaning.
I don’t know what you’re talking about!
Please come back next Monday, as I travel the world and the seven seas to bring you another lost hit…
Why couldn’t we play “Here Comes the Rain Again!?!?”
I liked this two… it was real muzak… and they really had talent…
Agreed!
I REALLY liked them a lot……Annie’s voice was amazing – it could go anywhere she wanted it to go. They were very creative too with videos, stage presence, words. There was REAL talent there – not fluff and noise like much of today’s stuff.
Pam
Are you saying that Justin Beiber is all fluff and noise? Now I wonder who has the job of “fluffing” Da Biebs?
I never heard this one before. It’s really good, and that video was strange, but just had to keep on watching it. 🙂
Gotta love those mid 80’s videos that kept trying to push the envelope with really weird effects!
Good music.
Sweet dreams are made of these.
Who am I to disagree?
I’ve traveled the world and the seven seas.
At least she wasn’t working on a chain gang…
Now in keeping with your whole missionary (in the holy way) theme, there was a really obscure little movie in the 80s which starred (among others) Tim Curry, Annie Potts, Bill Paxton (!) and Linda Kozlowski (of Crocodile Dundee fame). It was about one of those Sunday morning preachers (think Billy Graham in the day) and how his sleazy agenda is exposed by his studio being robbed one Sunday by a band of inept thieves. It’s called “Pass the Ammo” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass_the_Ammo# ) Your musical selection today made me think of the movie….. odd how these little coincidences just fall from the sky..
Never heard of that movie… and I’m kinda surprised since HBO loved to show crappy movies like that in the 80’s.
At first I thought I did not know the song, but then – the words came to me, before they were sung. Oh yeah, the sound of my misspent youth.
That happens a lot to me where I see a song title and artist and think I know nothing about it……. until it starts playing.
Dave Stewart makes a perfect foil as the Mad Scientist in that video! Well done.
He’s definitely creepy enough for it!
Well, you can’t really go wrong with The Eurythmics. Though from the build-up I was looking forward to some devil-worshipping death metal.
I was going to borrow something from Zeeba’s CD collection, but was afraid of what might happen if she noticed it missing….
I love this so much and I can’t even explain why.