Who recorded it first
You Got the Love
Not a Florence + the Machine original — a 1986 single by The Source featuring Candi Staton on Streetwave
A very large audience first heard this song in 2009 and files it as a Florence + the Machine song. It is a cover. The first record was “You Got the Love” by The Source featuring Candi Staton, issued as a 12″ single on Morgan Khan’s Streetwave label in the UK in 1986, and it was written by Anthony B. Stephens, Arnecia Michelle Harris and John Bellamy — the three men and women who were The Source. The 1986 record barely registered — No. 95 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 88 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart; the song only became a hit five years later, when a bootleg mix of Staton’s vocal reached No. 4 in Britain in 1991.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released Issued in 1986 in the UK on Morgan Khan’s Streetwave label, credited to The Source featuring Candi Staton — as a 12″ vinyl single, catalogue number MKHAN 78, and as a 7″, catalogue KHAN 78, with a US issue the same year. The 12″ A-side carried an extended vocal running about six and three-quarter minutes plus a radio edit; the B-side held a club house mix and an a cappella. DJ Simon Harris had found and licensed the track that year while looking for material for his newly formed Music of Life label, and took it to Khan.
Charted Barely. The 1986 single reached only No. 95 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 88 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart — below the Top 75 the Official Charts Company publishes, whose history for the act therefore begins on 2 February 1991, when the bootleg remix reached No. 4, followed by a No. 3 peak in 1997.
The paper trail
Wikipedia’s article on the single ↗ states that the song was written by Anthony B. Stephens, Arnecia Michelle Harris and John Bellamy, that Simon Harris licensed it in 1986, and that it was released on Morgan Khan’s Streetwave label — and that Staton’s vocal had been recorded earlier for a direct-to-video documentary she had forgotten making.
The physical object is catalogued: MusicBrainz lists the 1986 UK Streetwave 12″ ↗, catalogue MKHAN 78, credited to The Source feat. Candi Staton, with four mixes across the two sides.
The chart record confirms the original was a commercial non-starter: the weekly-charts table in Wikipedia’s article on the single ↗ gives the 1986 release UK No. 95 and US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop No. 88. That is below the Top 75 the Official Charts Company publishes, which is why its history for The Source ↗ starts on 2 February 1991 at No. 4 and lists No. 3 in 1997 — an absence of listing, not an absence of charting.
That the act and the writers are the same people is confirmed by Wikipedia’s entry on The Source ↗, which describes the name as an alias for the Stephens–Harris–Bellamy songwriting team before John Truelove adopted it in 1991.
The full version history on Wikipedia — 1986 original, 1991/1997/2006 remixes and the 2009 coverKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
Setting the record straight
The confusion here is chronological, not factual — nobody involved has ever claimed otherwise. It persists because the 1986 record was a commercial non-event and the 2009 cover was inescapable.
Florence + the Machine wrote and originated it
Their version, titled “You’ve Got the Love,” arrived as a B-side on Moshi Moshi in December 2008 and as an Island single in 2009, reaching No. 5 in the UK. It is a cover, and the band have always presented it as one.
The Source featuring Candi Staton, Streetwave, 1986
A UK 12″ single, catalogue MKHAN 78 (also a 7″, KHAN 78), licensed by DJ Simon Harris and released by Morgan Khan. On release it reached only UK No. 95 and US R&B No. 88.
Anthony B. Stephens, Arnecia Michelle Harris and John Bellamy
The trio wrote the song and recorded under the name The Source. Candi Staton, who sang it, holds half the copyright and publishing — given to her in lieu of a fee.
Sky Sports, Sex and the City, Gossip Girl and Layer Cake used the Source version, not Florence’s
Wikipedia attributes those placements to mixes of the original recording; the Now Voyager Remix was Sky Sports’ Football League theme until the 2014–15 season. The Florence sync that visibly moved her single was the Gavin & Stacey finale on 1 January 2010.
First released 1986, by The Source featuring Candi Staton, on Streetwave — and it was a hit twice over before Florence Welch ever sang it.
Context
How a record that barely charted became a song everybody knows
The usual story of an eclipsed original is that the cover simply outsold it. This one is stranger, because the 1986 record was never really in the race. It was a Streetwave single that stalled at No. 95 in Britain and No. 88 on the US R&B chart, built around a vocal Candi Staton had taped for a direct-to-video documentary about a man trying to lose weight, and which she had forgotten making. There was no hit to eclipse — only a piece of vinyl circulating among DJs.
What made the song famous was not the original release and not, at first, Florence Welch. It was a bootleg: London DJ Eren Abdullah laid Staton’s a cappella over the instrumental of Frankie Knuckles and Jamie Principle’s house record “Your Love,” and that hybrid, released commercially in 1991, reached No. 4 in Britain. Remixes in 1997 and 2006 went to No. 3 and No. 7. So by the time Florence + the Machine recorded it, the song had already been a UK top-ten hit three separate times, twice inside the top five — which is precisely the history the 2009 audience never encountered.
The full chronology, and which version soundtracked what
- Earlier in the 1980s: Candi Staton records the vocal for a direct-to-video documentary. The producers cannot pay her and assign her half the copyright and publishing instead.
- 1986: DJ Simon Harris finds and licenses the track; Morgan Khan releases it on Streetwave as a 12″ and 7″ single credited to The Source featuring Candi Staton. It reaches No. 95 in the UK and No. 88 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart.
- 1989–1991: DJ Eren Abdullah’s mash of Staton’s vocal with “Your Love” circulates as a bootleg; John Truelove issues it commercially in 1991 under the name The Source. It enters the UK chart on 2 February 1991 and peaks at No. 4.
- 1997: React Music’s “Now Voyager Mix” reaches No. 3, the song’s highest UK position.
- 2006: The “New Voyager Mix” on Positiva reaches No. 7.
- 2008–2009: Florence + the Machine’s “You’ve Got the Love” appears as a B-side in December 2008, then as a UK digital single in January 2009 on Island, with a physical reissue in November 2009. It peaks at No. 5.
- A correction worth making: the syncs most often credited to Florence largely are not hers. Wikipedia places the Sex and the City and Gossip Girl finales, the Layer Cake club scene and Sky Sports’ Football League theme (used until the 2014–15 season) with versions of the Source recording. The Florence sync that measurably moved the needle was the Gavin & Stacey finale on 1 January 2010, after which her single climbed 18 places to No. 13.
A record that stalled at No. 95, sung by a woman who had forgotten singing it.