Temptation (Heaven 17 song)

" Temptation " is a single by the Sheffield band Heaven 17, originally released in April 1983, peaking at number 2 in the UK charts.[ 1 ] This was the second single to be taken from their second album The Luxury Gap, after "Let Me Go" in November 1982.

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 Escher staircase and in the end there’s this big release."[ 2 ]

Carol Kenyon provided guest vocals; she continued to work with the band on the Pleasure One and Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho albums. The song also featured an orchestra, arranged and conducted by John Wesley Barker, which was also heard for the single "Come Live With Me" and in various tracks on the parent album.

Heaven 17 performed this song on Top of the Pops' 1000th edition in 1983.

In 1992, the song was remixed and re-released by the Brothers in Rhythm, whose new mix charted at number 4 in the UK Top 40, and reaching number 1 in the UK dance charts.

In 2008, the song was re-recorded for Heaven 17's album Naked as Advertised with the vocalist Billie Godfrey as guest vocalist.[ 3 ] On 19 October 2010, Heaven 17 performed the song on the ''[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Later..._with_Jools_Holland Later... with Jools Holland]'' show on BBC Two in the United Kingdom.[ 4 ]

The single was rated at number 273 on Manchester's All Time Favourite Top 500 Dance Tunes (compiled December 1995).[ 5 ]

Music video
The original Heaven 17 video, directed by Steve Barron showed the band dressed in black, in drab, grey surroundings in a style of German expressionism and had segments of what looks like an abstract office interview of some kind between vocalists Glenn Gregory and a Carol Kenyon lookalike interspersed throughout. Kenyon herself does not appear in the video.

Cover versions
The song was covered by Cradle of Filth in 2006 for the album Thornography.<span class="reference" id="cite_ref-15" style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:0.53em;line-height:0;position:relative;top:-0.5em;">[ 15 ]

<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:15px;">At the NME Awards 2007, Jarvis Cocker and Beth Ditto performed "Temptation", and released it as a charity single.<span class="reference" id="cite_ref-16" style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:0.53em;line-height:0;position:relative;top:-0.5em;">[ 16 ]

<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:15px;">Heaven 17 collaborated on a new performance of the song with La Roux at Maida Vale on 26 January 2010 for BBC6 Music.<span class="reference" id="cite_ref-17" style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:0.53em;line-height:0;position:relative;top:-0.5em;">[ 17 ] At Glastonbury on 25 June 2010, Glenn Gregory was invited on stage to perform the version again with La Roux during their set.<span class="reference" id="cite_ref-18" style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:0.53em;line-height:0;position:relative;top:-0.5em;">[ 18 ]

<span class="mw-headline" id="References_in_popular_culture" style="box-sizing:border-box;">References in popular culture
<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:15px;">"Temptation" was used in the 1996 film Trainspotting and appears on the second volume of the official soundtrack.<span class="reference" id="cite_ref-19" style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:0.53em;line-height:0;position:relative;top:-0.5em;">[ 19 ] It is also used in the 2010 Plus Net advert, where the band were featured in a tongue-in-cheek appearance performing the song.<span class="reference" id="cite_ref-20" style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:0.53em;line-height:0;position:relative;top:-0.5em;">[ 20 ]<span class="reference" id="cite_ref-21" style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:0.53em;line-height:0;position:relative;top:-0.5em;">[ 21 ]