Annie Lennox bares her beautiful souls

A song titled A Thousand Beautiful Things opens Bare, the latest album by Annie Lennox. She was the lead singer of Eurythmics a long time ago, a hugely successful solo artist this past decade, one of the most insightful songwriters ever, and surely one of the greatest voices ever heard during the pop era. The song goes like this:

"Everyday I write the list of reasons
Why I still believe they exist
(A thousand beautiful things)
And even though it’s hard to see
The glass is full and not half-empty
(A thousand beautiful things)
So light me up like the sun
To cool down with your rain
I never want to close my eyes again
Never close my eyes
Never close my eyes
I thank you for the air to breathe
The heart to beat
The eyes to see again
(A thousand beautiful things)
And all the things that’s been and done
The battle’s won
The good and bad in everyone….

With or without the music, the poetry of the song is a remarkable piece of work. It is about gratitude but is at the same time so full of the kind of pain that the broken-hearted likes to wallow in. It is with songs like this that Lennox holds her listener by the gut and if I were right now writing down my own list of a thousand beautiful things, A Thousand Beautiful Things or better yet, the album Bare will be among them.

It took Lennox almost 10 years to complete Bare and the wait was not one bit wasted. Her last all-original, all-self-penned album was Diva in 1992. Her last solo release was Medusa in 1995. As is the usual case with most of the things she does, both albums drew lots of raves. Lennox’s is no ordinary words and she is no ordinary music artist. Her every album is an intense experience. Bare is no different. It is a look at 10 year’s worth of joy and pain rendered colorful and affecting by Annie’s singular approach to her music. It is Emily Bronte on prozac, Rod McKuen on amphetamines.

"And love don’t show up in the pavement cracks/ all my watercolors fade to black/I’m going nowhere and I’m ten steps back/ all my dreams have fallen flat," she says in Pavement Cracks. "And all the things you never said or didn’t have the strength to say/ and everything you ever did that time won’t ever wash away/ fears that you’ve been livin’ with have gone and left their trace/ tears that you’ve been livin’ with come runnin’ down your face/ runnin’ down your face," goes The Hurting Time. "I didn’t want to know you/ I didn’t mean to be a friend/ but now it seems I’d run through burnin’ fire/ just to see your face again," comes from Twisted.

These intensely personal and oh-so-honest lyrics are set against haunting melodies that cry out in desperation, "Loneliness is a place that I know well" from Loneliness, or descend into abject prayer, "Oh God, where do I come in/ gone and broken everything" in Oh God. She gives free rein to the music by allowing it to take on the flow of the words. Soft and languorous at times, The Hurting Time, takes on a taunting rock beat in Bitter Pill, sighs a mournful lullabye in The Saddest Song I’ve Got or is pounding, urgent R&B as in Wonderful. The result is a timeless quality that pegs on no specific type and is instead suspended in a netherworld where musical expression has no boundaries.

Given the deeply felt emotions that accompany the making of this album, I will not be surprised if it will take Lennox another 10 years to come up with another. No matter. There is enough in Bare to keep listeners active. There is so much in it that one has to analyze and understand. What you hear now and what touches you today will surely move you again tomorrow and many days hereafter but always in a different way. Bare bares feelings and these are always in constant change.

All of the tracks were written by Lennox who also plays keyboards. She helped produce A Thousand Beautiful Things with Andy Wright and Stephen Lipson. Her frequent collaborator in her other albums, Lipson produced the entire album.