Thursday 17 October 2013

Tainted Love


I was driving over to Brendan’s place this morning to take in his mail and make sure that the basement hadn’t filled with water in his absence. I will generally go in and stand there listening for the sound of dripping water or the trickle of a mountain stream coming from his basement. It occurred to me today while I was standing there that with my tinnitus I always hear a hissing sound of water escaping from a pipe. I went downstairs and found it to be high (?) and dry. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

On the way home, the song “Tainted Love” came on the radio. It isn’t the kind of music that I normally listen to, but life is full of exceptions to the rules. “Tainted Love” was written by Ed Cobb of the Four Pegs, and first recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964. It failed to chart at all and was considered a failure. In the 70’s it gained some popularity when a British DJ played it in clubs and due to this, Gloria re-recorded the song in 1976. It was once again a commercial failure. Poor Gloria!
 
In 1981, the synth duo Soft Cell recorded “Tainted Love” in a slower tempo and in the key of “G” rather than the original “C”. They hadn’t had a lot of commercial success and their record company implied that if their second single didn’t chart, then they would be dropped from the label. No pressure. Of course “Tainted Love” became the number one hit in the UK for 1981 and has sold over 1.27 million records since then.
 
Marilyn Manson covered “Tainted Love” in 1991 and although it didn’t do as well as the Soft Cell release, it spent 22 weeks on the UK charts. Still, it’s a pretty impressive result.

I know, you are wondering why I mentioned this and quite rightly so. I don’t remember ever hearing the Gloria Jones version and although I do remember hearing the Soft Cell version, at the time it wasn’t my kind of music. There is no way that I would have heard the Marilyn Manson version, I just don’t get that level of performance. The reason that I liked the song and still like it is because of the movie “Coneheads”. I just love the scene where Beldar is driving his daughter and her friends to the mall and the song comes on the radio. I remember listening to crap music when I was driving my teenagers around and could relate to poor Beldar.
 

My buddy Brian who lives on Vancouver Island also likes that movie, but he is really, really, really twisted, unlike me. This is for Brian.


I had better go down in the cellar; I think I hear water hissing out of the pipes downstairs.

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