I just could not resist another Culture Club classic...this is the one that put them on the map!

In the spring of 1983, there was a Motown styled song with a reggae beat that was sweetly rendered by a soulful Boy George with his group the Culture Club. The song peaked at #2 for three weeks losing the battle for #1 to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean".

George O'Dowd was born June 14, 1961 in Kent, England and raised Catholic. His father used to beat his mother, even when she was pregnant with George. No stranger to heartbreak from an early age, he began to experiment with cross dressing looking to blur the line between the established sexes and develop his persona.

He began clubbing in his new drag, making friends on the club circuit like Marilyn and caught the attention of Malcolm McLaren (Manager of Sex Pistols). McLaren hooked him up with Bow Wow Wow and George adopted the moniker Lieutenant Lush. Unable to reconcile lead vocal duties with co lead Annabella Lwin, he left Bow Wow Wow to start his own band.

The first member he recruited was bassist Mikey Craig, then drummer Jon Moss and finally guitarist Roy Hay and chose the name Sex Gang Children. After some discussion that their name was too controversial, they fell on Culture Club when they realized that they had an Irish person, a Jewish person, a Black person and a British person, so the new name was adopted. George dubbed himself Boy George which was ironic considering his androgyny.

EMI was the first to get them into the studio, but it was not a match made in heaven so EMI let the group go. Virgin Records snapped them up and put them to work preparing their first album release.

Their first two singles "White Boy" and "I'm Afraid Of Me" did not do very well. Just before the group was going to appear on the BBC, George wrote a song called "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me". It was recorded live in the studio without studio gadgetry and its simplicity underlined its soulfulness. Background singer Helen Terry was brought in and provided the perfect accompaniment. Boy George did his vocal in one take and refused to redo it once it was discovered that the master tape was running slow. The studio engineers were able to correct the mistake to everyone's satisfaction and the song was given a place on their first album.

Boy George was not confident that "Hurt Me" would be a hit, and did not want it released as a single as "it was a very personal song" and not commercial enough to make an impact. The label suggested they remove 20 seconds from the middle, but George retorted "Don't blame me if it flops". Well, they had nothing to worry about as it became a worldwide sensation peaking at #2 on the Hot100 for three weeks, #8 on the Adult Contemporary chart, #39 on the R&B survey and #34 on the disco/dance chart.