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It’s another step back in time this week, as I turn my attention to an album that is a youthful 21 years of age - Savage by the Eurythmics.

I have to say, I never really understood this album, but I’ve always loved it. Stand out tracks for me personally are “I’ve Got a Lover (Back in Japan)” which has a beautiful contrast between the firmness of Annie’s instructions on the chorus to “Break, break, break away those ties” and the smooth styles of “When the whole world descends on me I’ll be waiting for you” which has a dreamlike essence, and “Shame” which is one of those songs that you are driven to sing along to - full-on driving wailings in a pittiful effort to match Annie’s range and always failing, but the words - oh such beautiful lyrics - and the absolute necessity to spit “You with yer brand new shoes and yer greasy hair and you with your mother’s pride and poetry”…

The most commercially succesful track of the album though (there were four singles in all, with this one peaking at Number Sixteen in the UK charts) is the very gentle synth pop track “You Have Placed a Chill In My Heart”. If ever there was a song that encapsulated the agonies of mustering the strength to walk away from a destructive relationship, then this is it. But oh so beautifully done.

For me personally, the cream of the crop is “Shame”. Beautifully smooth, totally engaging lyrics blend with the music to capture the essence of a time… that might never have actually existed beyond the mind of a poet. Certainly, this isn’t a life that I ever knew, but oh can’t you feel the shame…

It may be 21 this year, but “Savage”, despite, or perhaps because of, it’s synths and drum machines, hasn’t aged at all.

Don’t you want to feel the shame?

Eurythmics - Savage (p) and (c) 1987 RCA (UK) Limited. All titles composed by Eurythmics, Annie Lennox & David A. Stewart