This Fire
This fierce disco number, written by Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff and Cary Gilbert captured my imagination. I have listened to radio play of the song too many times to count. Thelma Houston’s opening voice run washed over me like the movement of a great tide. Is not our fundamental longing that of loving and to be loved? I don’t mean simply the flush of romance, just hormones urging for procreation. I mean to encounter another person who “gets us” and reciprocally, we comprehend them in all of their flawed magnificence.
These facts about the 1967 release of Houston’s album are disclosed by wikipedia:
In 2021, Rolling Stone included “Don’t Leave Me This Way” in their list of 500 Best Songs of All Time at No. 355, while in 2022, the magazine ranked it No. 121 in their 200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Houston’s version of the song became an unofficial theme song for gay men during the AIDS epidemic.
