In 1980 Siouxsie and the Banshees released the song Happy House as a single. As irony has, a decade later it’s melody would be used to produce a big commercial house music hit.

The distinguishing riff from the opening first pops up in the 1990 track Neue Dimensionen by Techno Bert. Despite the German title (and lyrics), the producers behind it were Italian and the track was released on an Italian label. My guess is that’s how Italian producer Gianfranco Bortolotti got wind of it.

Bortolotti was the man behind Euro-dance group Capella. While he had released singles before under the name it wasn’t till the release of U Got 2 Know in 1992 that Capella scored its first massive hit throughout Europe and beyond … with the same tune from Happy House. Later Capella would get sued over this and lost.

Spacework disregarded the melody and sampled the vocals from the original Happy House in the track Happy House in 1993, as a clever reference the the house scene that was booming at the time.

In 2000 Mindless Self Indulgence also sampled the intro directly in their song Bitches (of which there’s a hilarious Pokemon video mashup btw). The original Happy House also got a make-over in the 2004 remix of Happy House by SFB.

Whosampled.com also lists the bassline in Calvin Harris’ Acceptable in the 80’s from 2007 as being an interpolation of Happy House. The 2009 song Dressed to Kill by Preston however hardly hides it’s original. The Weeknd also sampled it in the song Glass Table Girls in 2011. On top of those there were also covers by Ginger Ale (2002), Celluloide(2003) and Shindu (2011).