Thorn In My Side

Holding this European seven-inch on RCA from late summer 1986 brings back the moment Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart traded synth racks for leather jackets and touring muscle. By the time Revenge landed, Eurythmics had stopped behaving like a studio-bound electronic project and become a full-tilt rock outfit. Recording largely live at Conny Plank’s studio near Cologne and Studio de la Grande Armée in Paris, they brought in Blondie drummer Clem Burke to lock down the rhythm section. The B-side, a live take of When Tomorrow Comes, showed exactly where their heads were at.

The record is legendary for Lennox’s vocal performance. Fresh from the bitter collapse of her marriage in 1984, she walked up to the microphone with cold fury. As Stewart later recalled, she cut the entire vocal in a single take, her voice icy yet fiercely passionate as she delivered the cutting opening lines. It remains one of the sharpest kiss-off songs ever pressed to vinyl, disguising sheer contempt beneath a Motown-inspired sixties pop bounce.

The visual presentation matched the muscular new sound. In the music video, directed by Stewart and Chris Ashbrook, the duo performed inside a dimly lit bar packed with Hells Angels, fully leaning into their black leather stage look.

While American radio hesitated, perhaps still expecting the electronic cool of Sweet Dreams, European audiences bought into the new direction instantly. The single went top ten across the continent, peaking at number five in the UK and reaching number two in Ireland. The parent album became an unstoppable bestseller, proving that Stewart and Lennox could command massive arenas without losing their idiosyncratic artistic core.

In Sweden, the connection with Eurythmics ran especially deep. The track climbed into the top ten on Sverigetopplistan, peaking at number six, while Revenge sat proudly at number one on the album charts. On Trackslistan, Swedish listeners voted the song straight into the Saturday countdown during the autumn of 1986, keeping it on the chart for five weeks.

Bootlegs from their Swedish tour dates that autumn, notably the fan-favorite Sensing The Storm recordings, captured an audience that adored this band in all their unvarnished live power. Dropping the needle on this RCA forty-five today, that opening acoustic guitar strum still leads into an absolute masterclass in pop songwriting, turning raw domestic heartbreak into an enduring anthem.