Temptation (Heaven 17 song)
| "Temptation" | ||||||||
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| Single by Heaven 17 | ||||||||
| from the album The Luxury Gap | ||||||||
| B-side | "We Live So Fast", "Who'll Stop the Rain" |
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| Released | 8 April 1983 | |||||||
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| Recorded | 1983 | |||||||
| Length | 3:08 (7" version) 4:37 (12" version) |
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| Label | Virgin | |||||||
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| Heaven 17 singles chronology | ||||||||
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"Temptation" is a single by the Sheffield band Heaven 17, originally released in April 1983, peaking at number 2 in the UK charts. This was the second single to be taken from their second album The Luxury Gap, after "Let Me Go" in November 1982. "Temptation" was certified silver by the BPI in May 1983, for sales exceeding 250,000 copies.
Martyn Ware explained the subject matter of the song as "I woke up one morning and thought I've got to write a song about sex, I've never written a song about sex. So the song is about rising sexual tension; it has chords that keep going up like an [M. C.] Escher staircase and in the end there's this big release."Glenn Gregory later recalled that he laughed "when Martyn walked in and said he had this great idea for a song based on the Lord’s Prayer with a never-ending chord structure" (the line "lead us not into temptation" is taken from the Lord's Prayer).
Carol Kenyon provided guest vocals; she continued to work with the band on the Pleasure One and Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho albums. The song featured a 60-piece orchestra, arranged and conducted by John Wesley Barker, which was also featured on the single "Come Live With Me" and in various tracks on the parent album. In a 2016 interview Ware said that he told Barker that he wanted the arrangement to be "sweeping and expressionistic", giving the theme from The Big Country as an example of the kind of sound required.
Heaven 17 performed this song on Top of the Pops' 1000th edition in 1983.
In 1992, the song was remixed and re-released by Brothers in Rhythm, whose new mix charted at number 4 on the UK singles chart, and reached number 1 in the UK dance charts. The 1992 remix of "Temptation" was certified silver by the BPI in January 1993, for sales exceeding 200,000 copies.
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