When I originally started doing this section, I meant it to concentrate on mostly covers which were seen as odd, or unusual, or unexpected. Over the months, this has not always been the case: sometimes the covers are just interesting, but nothing you might not expect. This however takes strange bedfellows to new levels, and was certainly a strange choice for a cover version.
Originally recorded by Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, “Don't leave me this way” was a low-key, downbeat plea to his woman not to desert him after all they had been through. There was a lot of what you would probably have to term quiet desperation in the lyric, but when Jimmy Somerville left Bronski Beat off the back of a pretty successful chart career and formed The Communards, they had a massive hit, a number one in fact with a hi-energy, disco dance version of the same song. It probably made people (like me) who knew the original kick doors and fume, but it was massively popular, and in all likelihood led to a small resurgence in interest in the work of Melvin, as four years later Simply Red would record another of his classics and take that to number one also.
Harold himself, though successful with the Blue Notes, was less so than lead singer Teddy Pendergrass, who went on to do very well in soul and pop circles, but both their success is eclipsed by the cover versions of their songs, and anyone under the age of twenty now will always associate “Don't leave me this way” with disco dancing, punching the air, waiting for the big lead-in when everyone went “Ohhhhhhhhh.... baby!” and, sadly, the Communards. Here as ever as the two versions side by side, for you to judge the differences in styles.