Lennox gets festive — again
Former Eurythmics singer re-releases Christmas album with new bonus song
Annie Lennox, speaking about the release of her festive album 10 years ago, was typically ... single-minded.
Yes, she agreed, A Christmas Cornucopia featured cockle-warming orchestral covers of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, Silent Night and O Little Town of Bethlehem. But we were not to be lulled into thinking this was simple seasonal syrup.
“Isn't it ironic,” said the former Eurythmic turned women's rights activist, “that Christmas is a time of celebration, in memory of a child — the celebration of the divine, sacred event of birth — and yet in this day and age, one in eight women die giving birth in developing countries? And they'll die not even on the floor of a hospital, they'll be outside in the road. So I've brought something of that into the recording.”
Speaking to Lennox a decade later, about the same collection (reissued with a new bonus track), everything has changed — and yet nothing has changed.
Her age-defying vigour and cropped silver hair remain. But the 65-year-old (she turns 66 on Dec. 25) is video calling from the California home she's occupied in the canyons above West Hollywood since March.
The album now features Lennox's take on Dido's Lament, a classical piece inspired by The Aeneid and written by Henry Purcell in the 1680s.
Lennox recorded it during the original sessions but somehow forgot about it. Her producer rediscovered it during a lockdown clear out.
Now Lennox can see the timely reason for dusting off a cover of a 350-year-old composition based on an epic verse by an ancient Roman poet. “This is a lament for the world,” she says of the piano ballad.
Her arrival on U.S. soil coincided not only with the COVID-19 pandemic and a simmering general election, but also devastating Californian wildfires.
“We lived for two weeks with toxic air,” she says. “You couldn't open the doors or windows. If you had air conditioning, you were grateful for that, because it kept the heat out of the house. But you just felt so dysphoric, like it was the end of days.”
When it comes to division, she says it's intrinsic to the feminist cause for which she was a stadium-sized standard bearer in the 1980s. “I've realized it's a multi-faceted issue. Feminism is expressed and felt and perceived by men and women everywhere. But if you're driven by anger, it's just going to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat,” she says, rhythmically snapping her fingers. Were things simpler in the '80s, when Lennox flew the flag for what used to be called “gender-bending” and Boy George on Top of the Pops was confusing the nation's dads?
“I didn't just arbitrarily choose to put on a man's suit, cut my hair and become a gender-bender. It's not as simple as that,” she says.
“And George was so flamboyant, like a creature from outer space. But it was super-brave of him to do that, because he was a gay man who would get beaten up. But you know what? He'd punch the living daylights out of anybody that tried to assault him! He was tough.”