Annie Lennox

ALEX GREEN

FEMINIST idol, decadedefining songwriter, philanthropist, Aids campaigner, friend of Nelson Mandela – Annie Lennox has lived many lives in her 65 years. Ten years ago she added another string to her bow with the release of her first Christmas album.

But a decade later the Eurythmics star is relaunching A Christmas Cornucopia in markedly difference circumstances.

“The winter of 2020 has been unprecedented,” the Aberdonian extolls over video call.

“People have been in tremendous pain.

“There’s loss, there’s grief, there’s fear, there’s anxiety, there’s instability, so people have experienced this at all sorts of different levels.

“Christmas is a really strange thing because originally it’s supposed to be the acknowledgment of the birth of Christianity.

“And I’m not a Christian, and I’m not religious but I have a sensibility for transcendent things.”

Lennox is an 1980s survivor, a shape-shifter whose political and social concerns have defined her as much as her music.

When we speak, she sports a Zoom background more glorious than most: a bright, modern cottage-cumrecording studio with an enviable view of the Californian hills.

Built the same year Lennox was born – 1954 – the house operates as a sort of spiritual retreat for the singer. It is also home to her piano, from which she has serenaded and chatted with her nearly 400,000 fans on Instagram during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I put these things out because it’s from the heart,” she says.

“That might sound a bit cheesy but it truly is genuine and I know that anyone can be watching what I’m doing.

“It could be someone who doesn’t like you, and tells you so, or it could be