Dave Gahan’s favourite soul songs: “I feel like it’s a plea for forgiveness”
Basildon synthpop outfit Depeche Mode has had a tumultuous songwriting journey. Departing just as they released their biggest hit ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ in 1981, principal creative force Vince Clarke left the band to pursue other electronic ventures unburdened with compromising his pop sensibilities, quietly working the synths behind future chart monsters Yazoo and Erasure.
It appeared he had left his old school friends in the lurch, but stepping up to lyrical duties, the band’s dark horse, Martin Gore, more than rose to the occasion. He gifted the group with a run of hits that played a significant role in carrying them to world domination by the end of the decade.
The formula persisted well into the 2000s. Aside from a brief smattering of Alan Wilder-penned songs, Gore wrote the lyrics, while frontman Dave Gahan lent his pieces that distinctive baritone croon. By the time of Playing the Angel, Gahan had already released a solo album and was keen to add his songwriting credits to their eleventh record. Initially insisting on penning half the album, a compromise brought his contributions to three, including the single Suffer Well.
Gahan’s soulful character in his voice has become ever more pronounced with age. First truly belted out on 1993’s gospel Condemnation, subsequent albums following Songs of Faith and Devotion have further embraced Gahan’s emotional expressivity right up until 2023’s Memento Mori. Gahan has kept himself busy outside Depeche Mode, too, cutting further solo material and collaborating with production duo Soulsavers, notably on 1921’s Imposter, a covers album featuring renditions of his creative heroes.
Gahan approaches his renditions first and foremost as a fan, with every track filled with evident love, which makes for an incredibly affectionate album and arguably the perfect foil for his rich, commanding voice, even more so than his Depeche Mode day job. Among contemporary music’s biggest names, Gahan delves into his love of hits from America’s 1950s and 1960s, giving Imposter makeovers to Eartha Kitt, Nat King Cole and Elmore James.
While these artists share a proximity to soul from their jazz and easy-listening vantages, the purer examples in Gahan’s personal litany of much-loved soul numbers come from some of the genre’s lesser-known artists. Opening Imposter with a slice of deep southern soul, Gahan dusts off one of Goldwax Records’ biggest hits with James Carr’s The Dark End of the Street.
The final single from 1967’s You Got My Mind Messed Up, the Dan Penn and Chips Moman piece, has inspired many an equally loving cover, with everyone from Van Morrison to Pet Shop Boys having taken a stab at the ruminative soul classic.
Defined by Elvis Presley’s 1972 version, and funnily enough, another hit for Pet Shop Boys, channels some of Gwen McRae’s original recording of Always On My Mind. While his voice bears a closer resemblance to Presley’s, its stark piano backing evokes McRae’s early rendition. Closing the album with this song, as well as using it as the finale for the Imposter live dates, Gahan made his feelings clear in the tour programme: “Everyone has heard Elvis’ version of the song and knows the way he sang and performed it, but when I sing this, I feel like it’s a plea for forgiveness and a thank you at the same time.”
