Synopsis

Annie Lennox performs inside a decaying, turn-of-the-century London music hall transformed into a surreal bordello. Dressed as an elegant courtesan, she sings while an eccentric crowd of patrons, performers, and dancers moves around her. Four male ballerinas in tutus add a deliberately theatrical and comic contrast to the song's melancholy tone. Strange glances, exaggerated gestures, and an eerie child's voice give the performance a dreamlike, unsettling atmosphere, turning the video into a stylized meditation on romance, desire, and emotional disillusionment.

Factoids & Trivia

• Lennox conceived the video as a fantasia on the "mythology of love," rather than as a straightforward performance clip.

• She located an abandoned London music hall and had it reimagined as an old-fashioned bordello, drawing visual inspiration from paintings by Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

• The four male dancers in tutus are a tribute to Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, the celebrated all-male ballet company known for parodying classical dance.

• Actor Jake Canuso appears among the ballerinas. He was a dancer at the time and later became widely known for playing Mateo Castellanos in the television comedy series "Benidorm."

• The video was nominated for the MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video.

• Lennox's recording is a cover of a 1986 song by the British duo The Lover Speaks. Its success brought renewed attention to the original writers, David Freeman and Joseph Hughes.

• The song won Lennox the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, helping make the video one of the most recognizable visual statements from her "Medusa" era.