TV Cream

Singles

‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ by The Communards


‘IT’D NEVER HAPPEN NOW’ pop thrills galore as uncompromising ‘indie-gospel’ duo top the charts for weeks on end with an iconoclastic soul cover and accompanying video positively bursting at the seams with unashamedly blatant left-leaning iconography and gay allegory, without a single tabloid newspaper campaign to stop this evil filth from being ‘peddled’ to impressionable youngsters. Arresting vocal zig-zaggery between the high-voiced man and the deep-voiced woman invited much playground comment and imitation, as indeed did the TOTP-miming japesmithery of ‘The Piano One’, but that was par for the pop course in the bizarre level playing field that was the singles chart of 1986. Extra marks for the uber-swizztastic 12″ Extended Version, which more or less beefed itself up by several minutes with a looped sample of Jimmy Somerville going ‘E’.

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Brian Rowland

    January 6, 2010 at 1:46 pm

    One of the 12-inch versions lasted 22 and a half minutes. Such days of excess.

  2. David Smith

    January 6, 2010 at 11:17 pm

    I distinctly remember one TOTP performance which saw “the deep-voiced woman and the high-voiced man” haplessly end up miming their parts the wrong way round on one entry. You never see that on any of the funny clip compilations, it’s always Pan’s People with the dogs and Jocky blimmin’ Wilson Said…

  3. Glenn A

    January 29, 2010 at 11:17 pm

    I would never class The Communards as indie, closer to soul and pop. Fair enough, Somerville shared a lot of the left wing outlook with the emerging indie scene, but I doubt he would have been welcome at a Cure gig ( not intense enough for them). Still a good song and his Bronski Beat work like Smalltown Boy is excellent.

  4. TV Cream

    January 30, 2010 at 1:08 am

    Some of us would equally say The Cure weren’t ‘indie’, at least not by 1986

  5. Glenn A

    March 31, 2010 at 1:22 pm

    Not forgetting another Somerville classic shortly before he left Bronski Beat with Marc Almond on backing vocals, the cover of I Feel Love. Did he ever do a bad song? Not to my knowledge, as everything he did seemed to be a hit.

  6. Richardpd

    November 6, 2022 at 10:55 pm

    I’ve got a compilation of Jimmy’s Bronski Beat, Communards & early solo singles, which is very good & with hardly any weak tracks.

    I Feel Love was a medley with bits of Love to Love You Baby & Johnny Remember Me.

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