Annie Lennox - "I Put A Spell On You" & Danny Elfman - "This Is Halloween"

Scottish singer, songwriter, political activist and philanthropist Annie Lennox has been making waves for decades. It’s clear to see that we are ALL under her spell. After achieving moderate success in the late 1970s as part of the new wave band The Tourists, she and fellow musician David A. Stewart went on to achieve major international success in the 1980s as Eurythmics. With a total of eight Brit Awards, which includes being named Best British Female Artist a record six times, Lennox has been named the "Brits Champion of Champions".

Lennox embarked on a solo career in 1992 with her debut album, Diva, which produced several hit singles including "Why" and "Walking on Broken Glass". To date, she has released six solo studio albums and a compilation album, The Annie Lennox Collection (2009). Aside from her eight Brit Awards, she has also collected four Grammy Awards and an MTV Video Music Award. In 2002, Lennox received a Billboard Century Award; the highest accolade from Billboard Magazine. In 2004, she won both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Into the West", written for the soundtrack to the feature film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

In addition to her career as a musician, Lennox is also a political and social activist, notable for raising money and awareness for HIV/ AIDS as it affects women and children in Africa. In 2011, Lennox was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for her "tireless charity campaigns and championing of humanitarian causes". On 4 June 2012 she performed at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert in front of Buckingham Palace. Lennox performed the song "Little Bird" during the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in London on 12 August 2012.

Lennox has been named "The Greatest White Soul Singer Alive" by VH1 and one of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time by Rolling Stone. In 2012, she was rated No. 22 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Music. She has earned the distinction of "most successful female British artist in UK music history" due to her commercial success since the early 1980s. As of June 2008, including her work within Eurythmics, Lennox had sold over 80 million records worldwide.

At the 2015 Ivor Novello Awards, Lennox was made a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, the first female to receive the honour.] In 2017, Lennox was appointed Glasgow Caledonian University's first female chancellor, taking over the role from Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus. Lennox's vocal range is contralto.

Lennox's longtime support for LGBT rights have helped garner a significant following within the community. According to The Advocate, "her distinctive voice and provocative stage persona have made Lennox a longtime gay icon." With Eurythmics' music videos earning regular rotation on MTV in the 1980s, Lennox took part in the shaping of popular culture alongside other gay icons such as Boy George, Madonna, Morrissey, and Michael Stipe.

Known for her androgynous look in the 1980s – first widely seen in the 1983 music video for "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" where she had close-cropped, orange-coloured hair, and wore a man's suit brandishing a cane, a video which made her a household name – Lennox was viewed as the female version of Boy George, and during the Second British Invasion spurred by MTV, Newsweek magazine ran an issue which featured Lennox and Boy George on the cover of its 23 January 1984 edition with the caption Britain Rocks America – Again.

She’s been blazing trails for decades, and we’ve been following her like a star. Clearly we are under her spell.

So today, I choose a duo of SpooOOooky songs: Annie Lennox’s version of "I Put A Spell On You" & Danny Elfman’s "This Is Halloween" as my, remember and laugh, spook and scare, scream and cry, songs for a, wild, wondrous, and wicked Halloween Wednesday.