By: Chris Azzopardi
Gay icon releases new Christmas album – and opens up about AIDS pandemic, Perez Hilton’s ‘vicious diatribes’ and her own sweet dreams for the world
Legendary status, earned through over three decades in the music business, hasn’t changed Annie Lennox.
Despite being a global superstar, first making an impression as part of the Eurythmics in the ’80s before going solo, she’s genuinely concerned about the human condition, as her tireless work toward promoting HIV/AIDS awareness – with her SING campaign, established in 2007 – demonstrates. She’s inspired the world through dialogue and travel and music, a platform Lennox uses to fervently convey her feelings on society with her sterling voice.
“Universal Child,” which Lennox originally performed on _Idol Gives Back_ earlier this year wearing a shirt that said “HIV-Positive” (even though she isn’t), is yet another passionate plea – this time, to help heal the world. It takes on new life as it rounds out Lennox’s new, first-ever holiday album, _A Christmas Cornucopia_, which also includes traditional songs and unconventional carols. Its heart, however, is still intact.
On the phone, as Lennox speaks to us from her Scotland home about the long-gestating collection, she’s completely grounded, initiating the conversation by mocking how much time her people have given us: “This is your 15 minutes with Annie Lennox,” she opens with a laugh.
And so it is, as Lennox gets heated over issues dear to her heart: her opinion on the current state of HIV/AIDS, feelings about the bullying-prompted suicides, and why sexuality labels shouldn’t exist.
Why release a Christmas album now, after all this time in the business?
It was just the optimum moment. It’s something I’ve been longing to do for many years, and when you do anything in music it takes time. So every album that I’ve ever made has taken up most of the year that I’ve made it in. Then, finally, it came to the point where I was out of contract and I was like, “What’s my next step?” And then it just occurred to me very obviously, “Ah, this is when I do what I’ve wanted to do for years.” (Laughs) So it’s just perfect. It’s a labor of love, this whole thing.
It sounds like it too, and it has some extra significance: Your 56th birthday is on Christmas Day. Did you ever get gypped on gifts?
When I was a kid, it was fine – I used to get double, and I felt very good about that. But I’m at a point where receiving presents is not really the most important thing to me. (Laughs)
Well, of course: You’re more about giving, right?
I prefer to. It’s very nice to get a present, but I like to give. I do.
How did the song come about?
I hadn’t intended to write a song for the album, but one day I had this idea for “Universal Child” and I just started playing around with it while we were recording something. And basically, I was like, “Ohhh, wow, there’s a really interesting thing happening here.” So we stopped recording what we were recording and we carried on with “Universal Child” and finished it in the same evening. Sometimes it’s so strange like that: You write a song and it all comes at once. So that was one of those.
You merge a lot of your passion for activism into your music, particularly as it pertains to children and AIDS. Why do you think music is such a good platform for these issues?
Music is a great vehicle of communication; everybody loves music – I never really met anybody who didn’t like music. And music tells stories and communicates ideas, and people are interested in music and musicians.
Sadly, in our culture we’re obsessed with celebrity – celebrity is the thing – and we spend so much money on magazines; we’re so interested in other people’s lives, so-called celebrities, and it’s a bit disheartening because we’re a big world and there’s so many things we could change and put right. But we’re so consumed by our own consumerist culture that very often we don’t see it.
I had a bit of a turning point when I had an opportunity to go to places that I wouldn’t have had a chance to visit before, and it blew my mind. I thought I knew what poverty was about. I thought I knew, and actually I didn’t know until I saw it for myself.
Right – back in 2003 when you participated in the launch of Nelson Mandela’s HIV/AIDS foundation. How has seeing the devastation caused by poverty and AIDS affected you as a person?
I don’t think anybody could grasp the scale of the HIV/AIDS pandemic as it is played out, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa where you have 22 million who are infected with the virus. Twenty-two million! And when you have so many deaths – I think it’s 27 million – it’s a figure that you cannot get your head around.
Recently, I was in Berlin and I went to visit the Jewish Holocaust memorial right in the center of former East Berlin, and it’s very, very powerful – all kinds of people who perished in this Holocaust. The figures are staggering. And then you look at the HIV issue and it’s even more.
We were all celebrating the Chilean miners, including myself, and I was so happy to see these men emerge one by one – 33 men, out of the earth – and yet I know the price of human life in many places is worthless.
What does being a gay icon mean to you?
(Laughs) It means lots of gay men and women like me! It’s a funny thing: I don’t wake up in the morning and think, “Oh my goodness, I’m a gay icon!” Not at all. But you see, I’m not part of the gay community myself, so it’s not part of my direct experience. But I’m certainly a liberal-minded person, and I actually really almost resent all these labels.
