Annie Lennox decided to become a singer-songwriter whilst sitting on a double-decker bus.
The 70-year-old star followed her dream and went on to sell over 75 million records, bag three UK Official Album Chart Number Ones and claim a UK Official Singles Chart Number One as part of Eurythmics with Dave Stewart, 73.
Annie told the new issue of Best magazine: “I remember one day I was sitting on the top of a double-decker bus in London and the thought came to me.
“I thought, ‘I want to be a singer-songwriter, I think I can do that,’ and I just carried it. I got off the bus, and I said, ‘I’m going to be a singer-songwriter.’
“Honestly, it sounds ridiculous, but I’ll be real about this, I think you need to conceive what you want to become. I think there has to be a compass where you say, ‘That’s it.’
Before Dave and Annie formed Eurythmics in 1980, the duo were in the band The Tourists and were briefly a real-life couple.
However, they decided to end their relationship, which caused great pain for Annie at the start of Eurythmics.
Asked if the beginning of Eurythmics was a “very exciting time” in her life, Annie admitted: “It was exciting, but it was also very painful because Dave and I had been a couple, and we decided to break up, and that was painful.
“The song 17 Again, where the line goes, ‘Who could not be together, and who could not be apart,’ it’s really a reference to me and Dave.
“We could not be together as a couple, but we could not be apart musically.”
Eurythmics scored a UK Official Singles Chart Number One with the 1985 song There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart).
They went on to achieve three UK Official Album Chart Number Ones with 1983’s Touch, 1989’s We Too Are One and the 1991 Greatest Hits compilation.
Eurythmics – which won the BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music in 1999 – split in 2005, but Annie and Dave, who now focus on their solo careers, have reformed for one-off occasions.
And after all these years, Annie still gets nervous when she performs.
The star explained: “It’s terrifying, and it’s wonderful for me at the same time. I’m always nervous a little bit before I go on stage.
“I used to be absolutely terrified. I always brought stage fright onto the stage with me, and I always had to fight it.
“Now, I’m a lot more relaxed, and I feel you are my friends and my counterparts.”