Beethoven (I Love to Listen To)



"Beethoven (I Love to Listen To)" is a song by the British pop music duo Eurythmics, released in October 1987 as the first single (in the UK) from their seventh album, Savage.

Writing
It was written by group members Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart. Although not released as a single in the United States, the track appeared as a double A-side of the 12 inch single for "I Need a Man", and received heavy rotation on MTV. It was a Top 20 hit in several European territories and also in Australia.

Style
The Savage album returned Eurythmics to a more electronic sound and the "Beethoven" vocals are performed mostly as spoken-word from Lennox, with the exception of the repeated phrase "I love to" throughout the track.

7": RCA (UK, GER, FR, SP, AUS)

 * 1) "Beethoven (I Love To Listen To)" (7" Edit) – 3:59
 * 2) "Heaven" (LP Version) – 3:24

12": RCA (UK, GER, FR, SP, AUS)

 * 1) "Beethoven (I Love To Listen To)" (Dance Mix) – 5:18
 * 2) "Heaven" (LP Version) – 3:24
 * 3) "Beethoven (I Love To Listen To)" (LP Version) – 4:48

CD Single: RCA (UK, GER)

 * 1) "Beethoven (I Love To Listen To)" (7" Edit) – 3:59
 * 2) "Heaven" (LP Version) – 3:24
 * 3) "Beethoven (I Love To Listen To)" (Dance Mix) – 5:18

CD single: RCA (JP)

 * 1) "Beethoven (I Love To Listen To)" (7" Edit) – 3:59
 * 2) "Heaven" (LP Version) – 3:24

Background
Music videos were produced for all twelve tracks on the Savage album, all directed by Sophie Muller, and most of them with a shared concept featuring character(s) played by Lennox who display characteristics of dissociative identity disorder or split personalities.

As the first part of this loose narrative, the "Beethoven" video begins with Lennox portraying a repressed, middle-class housewife, knitting in her apartment. She exhibits characteristics of obsessive-compulsive disorder through her habitual cleaning and chopping of vegetables. The video also includes a mischievous little girl who has blonde hair, and a man who is wearing make-up and an evening gown, neither of whom are directly noticed by the housewife even though they are in her living room with her. These characters are seemingly components of a new character that the dowdy housewife becomes as she has a nervous breakdown and transforms herself into a blonde, overtly sexual vixen. In this newly liberated persona she trashes the apartment that, as a housewife, she had kept meticulously clean. The video ends with her walking out into the street laughing.