Eurythmics- Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

The Song Their Label Refused To Release

Released on January 21, 1983, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” became the career-defining moment for Eurythmics—but only after Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart fought tooth and nail to convince RCA Records to put it out. The duo’s record label had watched three previous singles flop and saw no commercial potential in a song with no traditional chorus, just a hypnotic mantra repeated over pulsing synthesizers. The single reached number two in the UK and spent four weeks at number two in America before finally claiming the top spot for one week in September 1983. What nobody at RCA anticipated was that this “uncommercial” track would define an entire era of synth-pop.

While “Sweet Dreams” dominated British charts and eventually conquered America, it outperformed Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” in several European territories and became the 11th best-selling single of 1983 in the UK. The song spent six weeks in the UK’s Top 5 and helped propel the album to number three. In Canada, it went straight to number one. The track’s success was so unexpected that when it started climbing the US charts, their previous single “Love Is A Stranger” was hastily re-released and also became a hit. MTV’s heavy rotation of both videos, featuring Lennox’s shocking orange crew cut and masculine suits, made her an instant icon of androgynous pop.

The song was born from desperation in late 1982. Lennox and Stewart were broke, stressed, and on the verge of calling it quits after their relationship had ended and their debut album tanked. Living above a picture framing shop in North London’s Chalk Farm district, they’d borrowed £5,000 from a bank manager to set up a bare-bones 8-track studio in the attic. Stewart couldn’t get any of their new synthesizers to work properly. Lennox was curled up on the floor in the fetal position when Stewart finally coaxed a beat and riff from one of the synths. She leapt up, shouted something along the lines of asking what that sound was, and started playing a countermelody on another keyboard. The dueling synthesizers created the song’s signature pulse. Lennox improvised the lyrics on the spot—dark, vulnerable words about everyone searching for something in a dream world that would never materialize.

Stewart and engineer Adam Williams recorded the track in their cramped Chalk Farm attic using nothing more than an 8-track Tascam machine and second-hand equipment. The stripped-down approach was born of necessity—they literally couldn’t afford anything else—but it revolutionized how music could be made. Stewart learned to use a Bel noise reduction unit as a makeshift compressor for Lennox’s vocals, switching it in and out during recording. The mixing sessions required all hands on deck, with Stewart, Lennox, and Williams each controlling three channels on the desk, riding faders at specific moments because tracks had to share channels. At precisely 37 seconds, someone had to pull down one track so backing vocals could appear on the same channel previously used for drums. It was chaos, but it worked.

The track appeared on their second album Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This), released on January 4, 1983, just weeks before the single. The album reached number three in the UK and went platinum. Other singles from the album included “This Is The House,” “The Walk,” and the re-released “Love Is A Stranger.” After years of commercial failure with The Tourists and the disappointing reception to their debut In The Garden, this was Eurythmics’ make-or-break moment. The song’s success allowed them to finally expand their recording setup and launched them into the stratosphere. Their follow-up album Touch would reach number one in the UK later in 1983.

Marilyn Manson’s trudging 1995 cover became an alt-rock radio staple and introduced the song to a new generation. Manson later revealed he had to fight his label Interscope Records to release it as a single, knowing it would reach people who otherwise hated his music. In 1991, a remixed version of the original reached number 48 in the UK. The song has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry. Cover versions span from dance remixes to orchestral interpretations, but none have captured the clinical, almost threatening precision of the original.

Dave Stewart later called it one of the most important records of 1983, and he wasn’t exaggerating. The song follows Stewart and Lennox everywhere—performed in Russian karaoke bars, Japanese nightclubs, Italian weddings. It’s the legacy that made everything else possible for both artists, from Stewart’s production work with Mick Jagger and Tom Petty to Lennox’s Academy Award-winning solo career. As Lennox once reflected, everyone has dreams they’re chasing, aspirations that seem impossible. She came to London from Aberdeen, Scotland, with her own sweet dreams of making music and writing songs. “Sweet Dreams” proved that sometimes the most desperate moments produce the most enduring art.