"Julia" is a song performed by British

pop Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * ''Pop'' (G ...

duo Eurythmics. Written by group members

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 music, new wave band the Tourists, she and fellow musician D ...

and

David A. Stewart David Allan Stewart (born 9 September 1952) is an English musician, songwriter and record producer, best known for Eurythmics, his successful professional partnership with Annie Lennox. Sometimes credited as David A. Stewart, he won Best Britis ...

and produced by Stewart, the song was the second and final single released from their album ''

1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) ''1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)'' is a soundtrack album by the British pop duo Eurythmics. Released on 12 November 1984 by Virgin Records, it was the duo's fourth album overall and contains music recorded by Eurythmics for the film '' Nine ...

'', which served as the

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

to the film ''

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...

'', an adaptation of

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalita ...

's political novel of the same name, and plays during the film's ending credits. The band were controversially chosen alongside the

Dominic Muldowney Dominic Muldowney (born 19 July 1952 in Southampton) is a British composer. Biography Dominic Muldowney studied at the University of Southampton with Jonathan Harvey, at the University of York (with Bernard Rands and David Blake), and priva ...

orchestral composition.

Song information

Musical concept

The song is a

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or '' ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

with very sparse electronic instrumentation and an almost a cappella performance by Lennox. Her vocals are accentuated by

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

effects in the background. The title and lyrics of the song are based upon the novel's heroine and love interest,

Julia Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e ...

. The cover artwork for the single is a still image from the film, featuring English actress

Suzanna Hamilton Suzanna Hamilton (born 8 February 1960) is an English actress. She played the role of Julia in the 1984 film adaptation of George Orwell's classic novel, '' Nineteen Eighty-Four''. Her other film roles include ''Tess'' (1979), ''Brimstone an ...

as Julia. Midway through the song, an instrumental line based on

J. S. Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...

's "Fugue #2 in C Minor" from

The Well Tempered Clavier ''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', BWV 846–893, consists of two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the composer's time, ''clavier'', meaning keyboard, referred to a variety of i ...

, Book 1, can be heard.

Reception

'' Cash Box'' said that the song is "a dreamy and ethereal piece which is almost exclusively Lennox’ airy vocals and David Stewart’s synthesizer meanderings." Breaking a string of six consecutive Top 10 hits, "Julia" peaked at number 44 on the

UK singles chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

Other versions

The version of "Julia" found on the soundtrack differs from the one being played during the end-credits of the film - which is more string based with less synthetic arrangements. This is also the case for many of the other songs on the soundtrack versus their version used in the film.

Music Video

The music video for Julia was directed by Chris Ashbrook (who had directed the previous promo for Sexcrime) and was filmed towards the end of 1984. The video consists simply of a closeup of Lennox's face whilst she sings and was later included on the VHS/DVD Eurythmics Greatest Hits, even though the song itself wasn't included on the compilation album of the same name.

Track listings

7" *A: "Julia" dited*B: "Ministry of Love" 12" *A: "Julia" (extended mix) * *B: "Ministry of Love" (extended) * this version although labelled as "extended" is the same as the one found on the album ''

Charts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Julia (Eurythmics Song) 1985 songs 1985 singles Eurythmics songs Songs about fictional female characters Music based on Nineteen Eighty-Four Songs written for films Songs written by David A. Stewart Songs written by Annie Lennox Song recordings produced by Dave Stewart (musician and producer) 1980s ballads Synth-pop ballads RCA Records singles Virgin Records singles