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Originally a No. 8 hit for the Dutch group Shocking Blue in February 1970, Bananarama had also reached No. 8 with their version by 8th July 1986.
Third cover version in a row there (fourth if you count 'My Favourite Waste Of Time') and for the third side of the album in a row, there's a US Number One by a British act who've never topped the UK chart. Indeed this was by no means the biggest hit for the 'Nanas over here but it's still pivotal in their career as their first of many collaborations with Stock/Aitken/Waterman. It's not an entirely typical SAW production, not least because the band came to them; they were already stars and hadn't been groomed for stardom by SAW, and nor were they signed to Pete Waterman's label so they probably had more power over stylistic decisions.
The other difference is of course that this is a cover of already well-known source material (although I hadn't heard the original at the time, and SAW records often appealed to a very yound audience who wouldn't have either) and it wisely retains the most distinctive feature of the original hit, that guitar riff. It's layered onto a track that was apparently meant to sound like Dead Or Alive and is in some ways more energetic than the original, but somehow seems to lose something else. Perhaps it's the deadpan earnestness of the original vocal that beats the barely-even-one-dimensional singing here. But you know, this does the job it was designed to do I guess.
I presume it's because I've been trying to think myself back into the past for this blog, but hearing this track again has reminded me of a limerick round on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue which might have been around this time. Somebody was given the opening line "A Roman centurion called Nicodemus", and rhymed it with "Had a dirty great enormous passsion for Venus". I can't remember all of it but the closing line was "Derek Jameson said 'Do they mean us?'" It really does seem like a long time ago.
Also appearing on: Now 3, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 (with Lananeeneenoonoo), 15
Available on: Smash Hits 1986
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