You Got The Love … but have you got all the mixes?

Florence And The Machine hit, recently remixed by The XX, has a long and convoluted history

The XX's terrific, chilly two-step remix of Florence And The Machine's You've Got The Love is one of the defining tracks of 2009. It's also probably the only ever example of a remix of a cover version of a refix of a mash-up of an a cappella of a song originally written for a diet video.

You Got The Love is the anthem that refuses to die. Every few years, someone finds a new way of throwing their hands up in the air and saying, Lord, they just don't care. It's now raided the UK top 40 in four different guises, been covered by everyone from Joss Stone to Kasabian, and soundtracked the series finale of Sex In The City; a far cry from its original setting, accompanying footage of a morbidly obese man waddling along a beach.

Candi Staton was one of the leading female singers of the disco era, but by the mid-1980s, her best days were reckoned to be behind her, which is probably why she agreed to lend her vocals to a song for a video about the world's fattest man trying to lose weight. Penned by a songwriting team calling themselves the Source, the original You Got The Love is a perky disco-pop track, generous with the slap bass, although Staton's gospel-tinged wail carries it. The song was released as a 12-inch on Streetwave, but an a cappella version also surfaced on Source Records, becoming a favourite tool for UK house DJs in the late-80s. Paul Simpson was first to use it, layering it over his own track Musical Freedom, although it was DJ Eren – a resident at London house night Solaris – who first twinned the You Got The Love a cappella with the instrumental version of Your Love, a Chicago house track credited to Frankie Knuckles (later discovered to be the work of a lesser-known producer, Jamie Principle).

This mash-up's potential was spotted by DJ John Truelove, who pressed it on to vinyl in 1989, retaining the name The Source Featuring Candi Staton. It was a slow-burner, but You Got The Love's status as a guaranteed floorfiller saw it stumble into the UK top five in February 1991. "They were calling saying I had a number one record in England," Staton told the Guardian in 2006. "I said, 'What song? I haven't released any.' When they told me it was You Got The Love, I said I'd never made a record called that. Then I got off the phone and realised – it was the one from the diet video! Which was never supposed to be a record."

Truelove developed a close relationship with the song, recording a more euphoric backing track in 1997, taking it back into the top five. This was the version covered by Florence (who oddly felt compelled to correct the title's charming grammatical sloppiness).

"It's cool that Florence has been able to take the song somewhere else again, in a very positive way," says Truelove, reflecting on You Got The Love's enduring power to unite crowds in end-of-the-night exaltation, "it certainly has led a charmed life."

The Guardian, Saturday 28 November 2009

Sam Richards