In 1964 Gloria Jones released a single My Bad Boy’s Coming Home. Since the single was not a commercial success, it’s B-side Tainted Love went unnoticed too. That song got a rematch in 1976 went it was re-recorded and re-released as a single of its own, but again failed to gain any commercial success.

Soft Cell made their own version of Tainted Love. When it was released in 1981 it became a huge international hit This is the reason why a lot of people still think the Soft Cell-version is the original, even when they hear the Gloria Jones version, which is not locked into the collective memory of the general public.

Over the years there have been dozens of covers (mostly of the Soft Cell version), the most popular being the Marilyn Manson’s version. Eventually the Soft Cell version itself got sampled for a track by Rihanna, which effectively destroys the connection the song had to its original.

That original is the 1964 Gloria Jones version of Tainted Love: