Ian Dewhirst, longtime Soul DJ and man behind Mastercuts and many other good things, just put this post on DJ History and I thought I'd put this up here almost so I could remember it. The thread was about Leeds club The Warehouse.

Ian Dewhirst says...

"Soft Cell recorded "Tainted Love" as a direct result of Paul Young LOL.

The Q-Tips (an early UK White Soul band featuring Paul Young on vocals) were playing a gig at the Warehouse and it was Paul Young's birthday that particular night. So Mike Wiand had ordered a giant cake to be put on the stage @ 12.00pm which would have a stripper within it. And the key thing was Mike also suggested that I should play some Northern Soul for the crowd which would be down there that evening. So, for the first time in 5 years, I actually pulled out my Northern Soul stuff and took it down to the Warehouse and started playing nothing but pure Northern Soul from 9.00pm as people were coming in. As per usual Marc Almond was running the cloakroom and as per usual we ignored each other LOL. That all changed @ around 9.50pm when I had just played Gloria Jones's "Tainted Love". Just as the record was ending, a breathless Marc Almond appeared having rushed from the cloakroom, up the stairs and halfway around the club to get to the DJ stand where he breathlessly asked what the record was. I told him and then he begged me to borrow it but it was one of the first copies and the one I used to play at Wigan plus still valuable so I told him to come round to mine the next day and I'd make him a cassette.

He came round the next day, I recorded it for him and he left a happy guy.

Several weeks later he turned up directly off the train from London and walked across the road into a club I used to play called Amnesia which happened to be right opposite the station. He brought me an acetate of Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" which I gave the first play in any club anywhere that night. Right there and then I thought it would be a No.1.

In fact, it went on to sell 34,000,000 copies and to this day is the longest running single that's stayed in the U.S. Billboard Top 50."

Brilliant. I love the internet some days.