The History of a Hit (3): THE SISTERS OF MERCY - "Temple of Love"

The History of a Hit (3): THE SISTERS OF MERCY – “Temple of Love”

Automatic translation. Improvements are constantly being worked on.

In the first part, we talked about the creation of the cult song “Temple of Love” by The Sisters of Mercy, which was released on October 7, 1983. You can read the story here. In the second part, we continued “The History of a Hit” and looked at the music video and imagined ourselves in New York’s Fasion Week. You can read the second part here.

Other locations of the “Temple of Love”

The chart success of the 1992 version in particular is likely to have ensured that allusions and borrowings from the song can be found in other works. At the end of 1992, Andrew Eldritch was delighted that Level 10 in his favorite game “Lemmings” (1991) had been given the name “Temple of Love”. In 1997, Crematory gave the song their unmistakable goth-metal flavor in their album “Awake”. Lexy & K-Paul borrowed the hit’s striking guitar riff for “Der Fernsehturm” (2002). A sample from “Temple of Love” in Seth Gueko’s “Les Fils de Jack Mess” (2008), on the other hand, made a foray into the hip-hop genre.

The artwork

The cover for “The Temple of Love” shows a black circle from which green lines emanate. It is strongly reminiscent of a black sun surrounded by green rays or an enlarged depiction of a green eye, with the pupil taking up the top left third of the cover. To date, nothing is known about the artist of the cover. In an interview with Siren magazine, Andrew Eldritch responded briefly and succinctly to the rumor that the artwork was a recording from the British science fiction series “Blake’s 7”: “I wish. No.”

The recordings for “Temple of Love”

For the new version of 1992, The Sisters of Mercy chose the Israeli singer Ofra Haza. When asked why she was chosen, Andrew Eldritch replied nonchalantly: “I want to marry her. So I thought it would be better if we got to know each other a little better first.” In true gentlemanly fashion, however, he never discussed how the studio work with Ofra Haza went. But in the end, as we all know, it’s the result that counts. And the results are still impressive today – regardless of which version is chosen!