In the Garden is the debut studio album by the British new wave duo Eurythmics. It was released on 16 October 1981 by RCA Records.
The album was co-produced with krautrock producer Conny Plank at his studio in Cologne, and features numerous guest musicians including Blondie drummer Clem Burke, Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft drummer Robert Görl, and Can duo Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit. Plank had previously worked with the duo whilst they were in their previous band the Tourists.
Two singles were released from the album in the UK, "Never Gonna Cry Again" and "Belinda". Neither the album nor the singles achieved much commercial success, although "Never Gonna Cry Again" charted at number 63 in the UK singles chart.
On 14 November 2005, RCA repackaged and released Eurythmics' back catalogue as "2005 Deluxe Edition Reissues". The re-issue of In the Garden added the B-sides from the album's two singles, plus three tracks recorded live on the accompanying tour.
Background
Stewart first met Lennox in 1977 at the health food restaurant Pippins, where she was a waitress. During that time, Lennox was studying at Royal Academy of Music and Stewart was performing in the band Longdancer with Peet Coombes. The two became romantically involved after Stewart heard Lennox play some of her compositions on a harmonium. They later formed the Tourists with Coombes, who acted as the band's primary songwriter and lead vocalist. Lennox sang harmony vocals in The Tourists and played a Vox keyboard that once belonged to John Lennon while Stewart served as the band's guitarist. However, the band collapsed in part due to Coombes' drug dependency.
The formation of Eurythmics occurred during a New Year's Eve Party hosted by Conny Plank at his recording studio in Germany. At the party, Stewart and Lennox encountered Robert Görl, who was the drummer of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft. The three held a jam session at Plank's studio that night and listened to music with Jaki Liebezeit and Holger Czukay. They recorded a series of demos at the insistence of Plank, who subsequently secured a record deal for the band with RCA Records. Plank served as the producer for In the Garden and received one third of the royalties generated from the album.
Stewart encouraged Lennox to ask Clem Burke of Blondie to contribute additional drums on the album. Lennox first encountered Burke playing Blondie's Autoamerican at a New York club and successfully convinced him to accompany them to Germany for the recording sessions.
Lennox reflected in an interview with The Observer that the album title was a metaphor for "a place of change. It mixes growth and death with optimism and pessimism."
Recording
During the development of In the Garden, which was done in a farmhouse outside of Cologne, Plank and several session members encouraged Stewart to incorporate a variety of sonic textures into their songs. Stewart first developed an interest in field recordings as a child and had experimented with recording sounds from a bakery adjacent to his house. <blockquote> On In the Garden, Conny Plank and Holger Czukay from Can and Jaki [Liebezeit] would teach me to just record all different kind of sounds and mix them into the actual track—and even if you can't identify them, the whole track comes alive. I've always done that ever since, and it all goes back to being a kid and making a recording in the baking shop.</blockquote>
Stewart's interest in found sounds manifested in the atmospheric playground noises in "English Summer" and what Nick DeRiso of Ultimate Classic Rock describe as "weirdly disembodied voices" in "All the Young People". Furthermore, "She's Invisible Now" features a typewriter as musical counterpoint and "Revenge" is layered with the sound of a woman's satisfied laughs.
In an effort to distance himself from the music of the Tourists, Stewart sold two of his guitars and replaced them with a Roland TR-606 drum machine, a Roland Space Echo, and a synthesiser. Stewart explained that this decision was partially in response to a perceived pivot away from guitar-oriented albums in England. "The punk movement had happened and had annihilated anything to do with guitar records. If you were in England, it was a joke if you just made a normal guitar record." Lennox commented that the experimental nature of the album was a byproduct of their desire to forge a new musical identity distinct from the Tourists.
Release
In the Garden was released on 16 October 1981, DeRiso writes: "Maybe it was a bit too weird. Record buyers stayed away in droves, as In the Garden failed to chart anywhere. RCA tried floating a pair of singles, but 'Never Gonna Cry Again' stalled at No. 63. 'Belinda' sank without a trace. It wasn't exactly an auspicious beginning for Eurythmics, but Lennox and Stewart were battle hardened after having already overcome so much."
For the album's accompanying tour, the band decided to forgo amplifiers and instead connected their equipment into a mixing console situated onstage adjacent to the drummer. The sound was projected through a PA system; some studio monitors were also used for sound reference. Stewart compared the setup to a "giant HI-FI turned up" and noted that the audio quality was a source of confusion for certain audience members, who incorrectly believed that the band was miming their parts due to the lack of unwanted noise emanating from the speakers. Rehearsals took place at the Mix, a makeshift studio located in an attic above a Camden timber factory. The location housed three keyboards, a double-neck guitar, a mixing console and two tape recorders.