The first PSB single I remember hearing was “What Have I Done to Deserve This?”–obviously something of a watershed because it introduced me to not only the Pet Shop Boys but also Dusty Springfield. (It was a few years later that I became a fully-fledged Dusty fan, but I guess “What Have I…?” planted a landmine that was waiting to be stepped on. A delightful land mine, of course.)
So it must have been somewhat after the fact that I first encountered their debut single. But “West End Girls” has subsequently gained a kind of aura for me that’s never quite been replicated in the rest of the PSBs’ career. It seems to me like the most coolly sophisticated pop song of all time. Part of that is to do with the spoken verses (you can’t quite call it “rapping”). Neil Tennant’s singing voice has never been a favourite of mine; fey, insubstantial male voices are a bit of a stumbling block for me in a way that the female equivalents (obviously) aren’t. But when he just talks in that posh accent with no downwardly-mobile pretensions whatsoever, it’s one of pop’s most refreshing disconnects.
Unlike “Billie Jean” where the lyrics seem to me completely beside the point, I really like the lyrics of “West End Girls”. But I like them in an impressionistic way, again I really have no idea what the song is “about”. East End boys and West End girls, I guess. So: desire across class boundaries? That makes it sound a bit too much like Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” though. Maybe it would be very obvious if I did what I never do and just sat down and read the lyrics properly, but to be honest I’d rather not know. “West End Girls” is just one of those euphonious phrases, like “the storming of the Winter Palace”, that is wonderful to contemplate in its own right.
The production, too, is a miraculous navigation of the murky waters of post-New Pop, managing to sound neither dessicated nor pandering in a gruesome White Soul kind of way. It just exists, geniunely unique and unrepeatable. The Pet Shop Boys released a more or less unrivalled string of superb singles following this, of course, but still, nothing quite as good.
***
Watch:
Download: iTunes
Two things: what do you think of the East 17 version? Of course I predict you will hate it on a musical level, but the fact that they traded on a quality of “East Endness” adds something interesting to this song, I think.
Also, Flight Of The Conchords do the most wonderful pastiche of this song – their version is called “Inner City Pressure”.
Posted by Mel on April 2nd, 2008.
I’d forgotten completely about the East 17 version. I agree, in theory, it’s an interesting appropriation…in practice unfortunately it sounds like every single naff thing about the early 90s compressed into 4 1/2 minutes…
The Flight of the Conchords thing is genius. Several people have more or less ordered me to watch that show and I see now I will have to obey.
Posted by Angus Gordon on April 7th, 2008.