ANNIE LENNOX : The Former Eurythmic Grapples With Her Dark Side

Annie Lennox calls herself “the biggest doubter in the world,” but when she was teamed with the driven, self-assured Dave Stewart in Eurythmics, she became one of rock’s most successful women--a soulful singer and a stylish, theatrical performer.

Without Stewart to encourage her through her misgivings, Lennox found the going treacherous last year as she wrote and recorded her first solo album, “Diva.”

“There’s all these self-doubts, all these fears, like a wave of them, and that’s usually been the thing that’s stopped me,” the singer said during a recent interview. “I used to just go up to (the album’s producer) Steve Lipson and tell him that I have given up. I’d say, ‘I just can’t do this on my own,’ and he’d say, ‘Well, you’re just gonna have to ‘cause that’s your gig.’ It was like pulling teeth sometimes.”

Lennox withdrew from the spotlight after the last Eurythmics tour in 1990. “We never discussed (ending Eurythmics),” she said. “We just didn’t make any plans to continue. And I knew that I wanted to have a family, and I knew that I was tired and I needed to reclaim myself, reclaim a life that had nothing to do with this.”

Lennox, who has been married for four years to documentary filmmaker Uri Fruchtmann, gave birth to their daughter Lola 18 months ago. But as she reclaimed that lost side of her life, the other one came calling.

“I think the way I see myself or the way I affirm my right to be here is caught up with making music,” she said, speaking softly in a light Scottish accent. “When that wasn’t around, I felt a little bit like, ‘Hang on, what am I supposed to be doing?’ (The album) started from that.”

Despite the structure and comfort her domestic life provides, Lennox (who will appear on “The Tonight Show” on Thursday and “The Dennis Miller Show” on July 20) is never far from the more disturbing strains that she believes foster creativity.

“I think when one is in a darker state, there is a need to express, because it’s kind of loaded, it’s a pregnant time. There’s this need to get it out, whatever it is. Happiness is contentment. It’s a complete time, so there’s perhaps less of that drive.

“And I think that I am a dark person. I have a very dark side, and I have to struggle with it really. ‘Cause I’m very precarious. Like I could tip. So if I’m happy I always have this sense like I might not be happy for very long. That’s how my happiness is.”