Summary
Stories of love, loss and legacy surrounding Donna Summer's iconic 1977 hit. Producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte wanted to make something which sounded like the future, and sure enough 'I Feel Love' went on to revolutionise disco and pave the way for electronic dance music. Almost 40 years on, it still sounds fresh to this day: the pumping arpeggiated bassline, the synthesized drones, and Donna's soaring multi-tracked vocals.
Writer and AIDS activist Mark S. King reflects on what the song meant to him back when it was first released, and then later through the HIV/AIDS crisis. Retail consultant and author Mary Portas shares how the song got her through a difficult time of loss, taking her to a place beyond grief. A place of freedom and dance. Singer-songwriter Bruce Sudano, Donna Summer's husband of 32 years until her death in 2012, remembers the heady days when they first met. It was 1977, the same year that I Feel Love was written and released. And music journalist Danyel Smith, author of 'Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop', celebrates the incredible legacy of Donna and the power of this pioneering track. A track that still, decades later, gets people on the dance floor.
Producer: Becky Ripley
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Why would anyone want to steal a toilet? |
| 0:05.0 | If they think they can get away with it, they'll get away with it. |
| 0:08.0 | But this isn't any old toilet. |
| 0:11.0 | This is a solid gold toilet, worth nearly five million pounds, stolen from a palace. |
| 0:17.0 | A solid gold toilet has been stolen. |
| 0:20.0 | Police are trying to flush the robbers out. |
| 0:23.0 | It's a tale of security failures, ruthless robbers and missing millions. |
| 0:27.7 | Crime next door, the golden toilet heist. |
| 0:30.4 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:48.9 | I was 16 years old, and growing up in Bojure City, Louisiana, a city you have probably never heard of and never will. |
| 0:55.8 | Not the greatest place to grow up if you're gay and you know it, which I did, and I was struggling with that. |
| 0:59.9 | I hadn't found yet a sense of belonging. |
| 1:09.7 | And I discovered at the age of 16 the one and only gay bar, a dance club in my town. |
| 1:12.2 | And it was an old Victorian house that some older gay man |
| 1:14.6 | had fabulously recreated as a nightclub. |
| 1:19.0 | And I walked in at 16 years old. |
| 1:22.2 | I was very tall. |
| 1:23.3 | I was over six feet. |
| 1:24.5 | And for whatever reason, |
| 1:25.7 | I managed to get in at 16 years old. |
| 1:29.3 | And I could feel the thumping of the bass beat. |
... |
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