Problem is, then she was competing with Tori Amos and PJ Harvey. Who were better at that than she was. In a way, Cyndi was sorta New Wave's last gasp.
One measure of just how much She's So Unusual was marketed to kids: the redoubtable Weekly Reader (a newsletter for kids that was sent to schools all over the US) had a front-page article about her in 1984. I remember this because our 6th grade teacher wrote a list of questions based on the articles every week for us to do as homework. Most American public school kids have at least one story about an incredibly dumb teacher they had somewhere along the way, an unfortunate reflection of how underpaid the profession was in those days. Mine was the result of that article about Cyndi Lauper. The homework question about that article was simply, "Why is Cyndi Lauper so different?" I must have read the article five or six times looking for an answer to that, and while it had numerous examples of her bizarre style and the likelihood that it had inspired the name of her album, it never said a word about just why she was so different. So, recalling the title of her hit song, I went with "Because she wants to have fun." It was the only question I got wrong. The "correct" answer? Becuase she has orange hair, wears crooked skirts, chartreuse legwarmers, etc. In other words, the question my teacher really wanted us to answer was "How is Cyndi Lauper so different?", not "Why". I thought about arguing the point with her, but I knew from experience that would only make matters worse.
I remember reading his book and how he could never live up to his father's expectations. One time he threw like a million dollars in cash on the bed and said " What do you think of that then dad ? " His father shot back " You have sold your soul to get it " Very, very sad.
"Here Comes The Rain Again" peaked on the US charts the week of April 7th, 1984. The third hit single for Eurythmics after chart topper "Sweet Dreams" and the equally wonderful "Love Is A Stranger", it has one of my favorite lyrics ever - "Want to dive into your ocean, is it raining with you?" Just a fantastic, chilly, sweeping production, anchored by one of the finest vocal performances Lennox ever recorded. It was released as the third single from Touch in the UK, but the lead single in the US (which makes more sense to me). Made it all the way to #4 here - 4 places higher than it managed in the UK - and remains their second-biggest hit stateside. The video is equally stunning - if the song doesn't send a shiver up your spine, the video almost certainly will. As with "Sweet Dreams", the origin story for this one is another instance of serendipity and on-the-spot creativity. Lennox and Stewart were squabbling for control of a keyboard in a Central Park hotel during their tour for Sweet Dreams as a storm rolled over Manhattan. Stewart won, and began plunking out a melody inspired by the first raindrops landing on the windows. Lennox in turn immediately blurted out the lyrics. And just like that, probably my favorite song of '84 was born. Although it had competition, because follow-up single "Who's That Girl" was almost as good. The duo were certainly on fire during this period, and Touch actually exceeded its predecessor's chart performance both on the singles chart and on the album chart. A fantastic combination of lush but icy pop and somewhat experimental soundscapes and rhythms, it definitely saw the duo move somewhat beyond the stripped back, spare, concise, demo tape quality of its predecessor with looser and often denser arrangements without completely abandoning what made Sweet Dreams work so well.
That is the song where, when it comes up, I can't help but thinking of The Fortunes' 1971 hit "Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again."
Do you mind if I interrupt this thread for a golden oldie throwback? This mono mix of "Mac Arthur Park" cannot be beat. The drums are crisper.
I remember the video for "Here Comes The Rain Again" so well. I love the look of it and the location. The tinted sky reminds me a lot of the video for Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes," which scared the crap out of me in '80 when I was 8. But four years later I see the Eurythmics video and all I can think is, "Scotland is the coolest looking place on earth." I always thought the line "Want to dive into your ocean, is it raining with you" was "Want to dive into your ocean, is it really with you?" Which always made me interpret it as, "is this a fantasy or reality?" re: Cyndi Lauper...it wasn't just the association with wrestling that turned me off. I couldn't stand the sight of that manager/boyfriend of hers, whose hair kept on getting longer and longer with each video until he looked like Ted Nugent. Not to mention that horrible theme song to the Goonies, which I know is skipping ahead, but I just had to mention it because I hated that movie. Maybe I was a year or two older than the target audience when it came out, but Goonies has always been one of my least favorite '80s "kid blockbuster" movies. Although (spoiler alert) I think she redeemed herself with True Colors.
Ahh...the Weekly Reader. I remember one week around this time they also had Michael Jackson on the cover (I know, what a shock!), but then it also had other teen idols like John Stamos and Menudo. And I think it came out right after Stamos left General Hospital or whatever show he was on. Weekly Reader was like the Time magazine for kids...by the time you made the cover, the fad was already kinda past ("Mad about Madonna," "Miami Vice: Hot Cops, Cool Show.")
"Here Comes The Rain Again" is an 80s classic. The combination of synths, shimmering guitars and and subtle orchestration worked beautifully resulting in a hit that was several notches above most of the synth pop that was popular at the time.
I remember reading in People magazine in the '90s that Kenny Loggins' wedding ceremony to his 2nd wife was held in the nude.
I WAS a big movie person, much more than a music person. I grew up in a college town with a great movie theater that played all sorts of unusual cult films, oldies and foreign flicks. In fact, I came close to majoring in Film in college... Even so, my family didn't own a VCR until I was out of college in the late 80s. Because more than anything, we were cheap.
I certainly like this one, and it was on the radio a bunch, but it never felt like nearly as big a hit as Sweet Dreams. I'm surprised it got as high on the charts as it did. (and I don't ever remember seeing this video, either. Weird).
Oh it was played wall-to-wall on our local music video station in Phoenix. MTV spun it quite a bit, too. This might have been one of the first music videos I videotaped - I'd gotten my uncle's old abandoned Betamax deck working again after fiddling with it and used it to record Monty Python episodes and a few other random things off TV.
Michael Kamen did the (wonderful) orchestral arrangements for "Here Comes The Rain Again", by the way. A Juilliard graduate, he scored ballet earlier in his career, before working on film scores starting in the mid-'70s and ultimately expanding to work often with rock acts like Pink Floyd on albums like The Wall. Other work included Queen's "Who Wants To Live Forever", "Moments of Pleasure" for Kate Bush, and in the '90s co-writing monster hit Spoiler: Spoiler! "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You". He also scored numerous films, including Brazil, the Lethal Weapon series, the first Die Hard films, The Iron Giant, and Memento. Diagnosed with MS in '97, he died of a heart attack in 2003. When Annie Lennox accepted the 2004 Academy Award for Best Original Song ("Into The West" from The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King), she dedicated it to Kamen's memory.
Eurythmics were much like Culture Club and Rio-era Duran Duran in the sense that they broke big at home earlier before making it here so single orders were out of wack and proportioned differently in the UK vs. US. Sweet Dreams was a hit in the UK about 7-8 months before it got big here, and they were already dropping singles off Touch there prior to the release (Who's That Girl went to #2 UK before Sweet Dreams topped the charts here), so Here Comes The Rain Again's timing as the leadoff in the US and the third single off Touch in the UK were synced up. But I think in the US made the right call. Here Comes The Rain Again works better as a leadoff single than single #3 IMO
