"It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back)" is a song written and recorded by the British pop music duo

Eurythmics Eurythmics were a British New wave music, new wave duo formed in 1980, consisting of Scottish vocalist Annie Lennox and English musician and producer Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), Dave Stewart. They were both previously in the Tourists, a band t ...

. It was released as the fourth and final single from their 1985 album '' Be Yourself Tonight''. The song was produced by Dave Stewart, and the song's

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

arrangement was devised by

Michael Kamen Michael Arnold Kamen (April 15, 1948 – November 18, 2003) was an American composer (especially of film scores), orchestral arranger, orchestral conductor, songwriter, record producer and musician. Early life Michael Arnold Kamen was born in ...

. The single became Eurythmics' tenth Top 20 hit in the UK where it peaked at number 12, but was less successful in the United States, stalling at number 78 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. As songwriters,

Annie Lennox Ann Lennox (born 25 December 1954) is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving moderate success in the late 1970s as part of the new wave band the Tourists, she and fellow musician Dave Stewart w ...

and Dave Stewart received the 1986

Ivor Novello award The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the Welsh entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and Musical composition, composing. They have been presented annually in London by the The Ivors Academy, Ivors Academy, formerly called the Britis ...

for Best Song Musically and Lyrically.

Composition

The song is a blend of R&B and

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...

in the key of D♭ Major, with a tempo of 93

beats per minute Beat, beats, or beating may refer to: Common uses * Assault, inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact * Battery (crime), a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact * Battery (tort), a civil wrong in common law of in ...

. The intro and chorus repeats the chords D♭ Major, C♭ Major, G♭ Major and F♭ Major over a bass

pedal point In music, a pedal point (also pedal note, organ point, pedal tone, or pedal) is a sustained Musical note, tone, typically in the bass note, bass, during which at least one foreign (i.e. consonance and dissonance, dissonant) harmony is sounded in ...

of D♭, while the bridge remains on E♭ minor throughout. The melody of the first line of the lyrics (It's alright, Baby's Coming Back) is identical to the introductory riff of Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles.

Reception

Cash Box ''Cashbox'', also known as ''Cash Box'', is an American music industry trade magazine, originally published weekly from July 1942 to November 1996. Ten years after its dissolution, it was revived and continues as ''Cashbox Magazine'', an online ...

'' said it "carries on the soul groove of earlier outings."

Track listings

7" *A: "It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back)" (LP Version) - 3:50 *B: "Conditioned Soul" (LP Version) - 4:32 12" *A: "It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back)" (LP Version) - 3:50 *B1: "Conditioned Soul" (LP Version) - 4:32 *B2: "

Tous les garçons et les filles "Tous les garçons et les filles" (English: "All the Boys and Girls") is a song by French singer-songwriter Françoise Hardy, with Roger Samyn credited as co-writer on Hardy's original 1962 yé-yé-era recording. The song recounts the feelings ...

" (Non-LP Track) - 3:29

Music video

The song's

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

, directed by Willy Smax, is a combination of live shots and computer animation, an innovative look for a music video in the mid-1980s. The video depicts a story in which Annie Lennox is in a car accident at the beginning of the video and her partner, portrayed by Dave Stewart, is so connected to her that he can instantly tell that something is wrong and immediately travels from the

Orient The Orient is a term referring to the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of the term ''Occident'', which refers to the Western world. In English, it is largely a meto ...

to get to her. She is seen lying in a hospital bed with a heart monitor in the background. She performs the song as an

out of body experience An out-of-body experience (OBE or sometimes OOBE) is a phenomenon in which a person perceives the world as if from a location outside their physical body. An OBE is a form of autoscopy (literally "seeing self"), although this term is more commo ...

. The main focus of the video is Stewart's race to get to Lennox's side, which he finally does by the end of the video. When he opens the door to her hospital room, her eyes instantly pop wide open and the two embrace and then turn into pieces of abstract

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

Personnel

;Eurythmics * Annie Lennox – vocals, keyboard sequencers * David A. Stewart – guitars, sequencers ;Additional Personnel *

Dean Garcia Dean Garcia (born 3 May 1958) is an English multi-instrumentalist musician, best known as a member of the alternative rock duo Curve from 1990 to 2005. He also released solo work and collaborated with many other artists. Biography Garcia was ...

– bass guitar *

Olle Romo Olle Romö is a Swedish music producer, songwriter, and drummer. Romo rehearsed with Swedish progressive rock group Kaipa in early 1982; however, he left the group after a few weeks to join Eurythmics, and he was a drummer for them from the mid ...

– drums * Dave Plews – trumpet * Martin Dobson – saxophones * Michael Kamen - brass arrangement idea

Charts

References

External links

* * * * * * {{authority control 1985 songs 1985 singles Eurythmics songs Music videos directed by Willy Smax RCA Records singles Songs written by Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) Songs written by Annie Lennox Song recordings produced by Dave Stewart (Eurythmics)