I think as one gets older one becomes more in tune with Johnny Cash. He was like a mountain that you knew one day you just had to climb. I of course got off to a bad start because the first time I ever heard him it was the dreadful “Boy Called Sue”. And amongst the glam rockers and sensitive songwriters Johnny Cash didn’t get a look in.
Then I heard this song. I knew the Animals version which I loved but this was different faster and had those great Mariachi trumpets. In the late seventies there seemed to be a constant search for “original” music as opposed to a lot of bands that were covering old songs. We were always trying to find who did the first version. So for Tainted Love by Soft Cell we would be playing Gloria Jones original Northern Soul blockbuster.
In Ring of Fire the lyrics talk about the torture of loving but the music rolls around like a drunken dancer at a wedding party. Nothing like it, depressing lyrics versus happy melody equals great singalong. And the horns. Everytime I work on a new album I dream of putting those kind of horns on.
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