Missionary Man (Eurythmics song)
"Missionary Man" is a song by the British pop music duo Eurythmics. It was taken from their sixth album, "Revenge", and continued the band's rock/R&B musical style of the time and featured Jimmy Zavala on harmonica and Joniece Jamison on back-up vocals. In the band's native UK, it was the fourth single to be taken from the album and peaked at number 31 on the UK Singles Chart. It was more successful in the US, where it was the first single to be taken from the album and peaked at number 14  on the "Billboard" Hot 100 (their last main US Top 20 hit to date). It also made the Top 10 of the "Billboard" Hot Dance/Club Play chart, and it received extensive airplay on American rock radio, reaching number 1 on the "Billboard" Mainstream Rock Tracks, Eurythmics' only song to top this chart. The single was also a top ten hit in Australia, where it was released as the second single from the album. "Missionary Man" earned Eurythmics a 1986 Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The video received heavy airplay on MTV  and received five nominations at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards. Background. Upon the single's July 1986 US release, the song was described as being inspired in part by Lennox's 1984-1985 marriage to devout Hare Krishna Radha Raman. When discussing the song's inspiration and meaning, Lennox stated "Obviously, there is a personal meaning in [Missionary Man] for me, because of my past history. But I also think that there are a great deal of people in the media, in the form of politicians or religious speakers or philosophical people, people who are generally trying to have  some power over other people, who I just don't trust." Music video. Directed by Willy Smax, the music video for Missionary Man featured stop-animation techniques similar to those used in Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" video from earlier in 1986. The video received heavy play from MTV and received five nominations at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards.