Pet Shop Boys - being boring seven inch version, 1990

"Not just one of the greatest songs about the Aids epidemic, but one of the greatest songs written about mortality and memory, Being Boring was a lightning bolt even amid Pet Shop Boys’ imperial phase (the imperial phase for which that phrase was coined). The lyrical evocations of impetuous youthful optimism and painful reflection are magnificent, the lines about bolting through a closing door a perfect example of their ability to turn something specific – the loss of innocence and carefree hedonism wreaked on the gay community by HIV – into something universal about youth. The music perfectly mirrors them, its melodic shift from melancholy to warmth, midway through the verses, understated but extraordinarily powerful."