Pet Shop Boys - it must be obvious, 1990

"But it feels like the flight of the von Trapps, does that mean it's war?" – The Trapp Family Singers, led by their patriarch Captain Georg Ludwig von Trapp, were a popular Austrian vocal group during the period just before the Second World War. Ardently anti-Nazi, they fled Austria just before their country was annexed by Germany in 1938, at which time their home was confiscated. They settled in the United States. Their story, told primarily from the viewpoint of stepmother Maria von Trapp, became the basis of Rodgers and Hammerstein's popular 1959 stage musical The Sound of Music."

Pet Shop Boys - i want a dog, 1988

"I've always found this an extremely lonely song, sung from the perspective of a narrator who considers the possibility of relying on a pet to keep him company more feasible — and perhaps more appealing — than relying on another human being. But, to be sure, this song invites a variety of other interpretations."

Pet Shop Boys - i get along, 2002

"Written as a love song, Neil Tennant has stated that "I Get Along" is also a commentary on the then fraught relationship between British prime minister Tony Blair and New Labour architect Peter Mandelson after the latter had to resign again from the British Cabinet when he was involved in a second major scandal. It is the first in a trilogy of songs about Blair, followed by "I'm with Stupid" (2006) and "Legacy" (2009). The phrase "rock royalty" was inspired by t-shirts worn by Stella McCartney and Liv Tyler at the 1999 Met Gala, and the line, "The big boys are back and we need them", came from an interview with Richard Ashcroft in NME. The song, like its parent album, also stands in contrast to the Pet Shop Boys' predominantly electronic catalogue of songs. It opens with a piano and features a rock-style guitar, played by Johnny Marr, with percussion by Jody Linscott and bass guitar by Steve Walters. There are only sparse actual synthesised sounds in the song."

Pet Shop Boys - always on my mind seven version cover, 1987

"In 1987, the Pet Shop Boys performed a synth-pop version of "Always on My Mind" in Love Me Tender, a television special produced by Central Independent Television for ITV in the United Kingdom. Commemorating the tenth anniversary of Presley's death, the programme featured various popular acts of the time performing cover versions of his songs. The Pet Shop Boys' performance was so well-received that the duo decided to record the song and release it as a single."

Pet Shop Boys - memory of the future, 2012

"this song is full of contradictions—and it's an amazingly powerful song for it. Both happy and sad, both deceptively simple and remarkably complex, its central contradiction stems from the title itself."

Pet Shop Boys - the view from your balcony, 1997

"The inspiration for this lovely song—a bonus track on the U.K. "Somewhere" CD single—was, precisely as its title suggests, a view from a balcony. Neil attended a party at the twentieth floor apartment of a friend who lived in Bermondsey in South London. Its balcony offered a marvelous view of the Thames River. Neil observed the irony of how this tower-block apartment, which at one time (specifically, he notes, back at the height of "punk rock") would only have been thought of as the home of someone who had been abused by "the system," nevertheless had a breathtaking panorama that could make it the envy of far wealthier, far more powerful people. Neil appears to be pointing out that there are many wonderful things in life that cannot be denied people simply because they aren't among the elite—and that, in fact, the elite (such as maybe Neil himself?) sometimes can find themselves envying others in presumably "less fortunate" circumstances."

Pet Shop Boys - lies, 1999

"This track holds a noteworthy place in the PSB corpus in that it's one of the very few—along with the multi-tracked "Postscript" and the later "This Used to Be the Future" — in which Chris actually sings (rather than speaks) lyrics in a voice that hasn't been greatly distorted somehow. Once again Chris demonstrates his mastery of upbeat, techno-oriented Europop. He creates vast sonic landscapes made for dancing. The lyrics, which were indeed written by Chris (a rarity for PSB tracks), emerged from what he describes in the Format booklet as "a true story."

Pet Shop Boys - a face like that, 2012

"a Chris-dominated, techno/dance-oriented, largely instrumental affair, with only the occasional vocal interjection by Neil."

Pet Shop Boys - the only one, 1999

"The best thing, in fact, about this track is its superb, imaginative production. Just listen to the way Neil and Chris slink their way into it with soft, subtle electronic squiggles and burps"

Pet Shop Boys - bet she's not your girlfriend, 1990

"This fast-paced track was originally inspired, as the Boys have put it, by seeing a newspaper photo of George Michael with a woman (Chris: "We can say that now"). But then Neil turned it into a song about his close relationship as a teenager with an absolutely gorgeous young woman named Krysia, a longtime friend who eventually ended up running the early PSB Fan Club. But back in Neil's pre-fame days, friends and acquaintances couldn't figure out what Krysia saw in him, who was—as his own lyrics put it—"kind of shy and dry and verging on ugly." https://sintrabloguecintia.blogspot.com/2024/01/voyage-from-east-to-west-1977.html

Pet Shop Boys - the end of the world, 1990

"The Virgin spoke in apparitions" – The Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared to people at various times and places throughout Christian history, such as at Lourdes, France, in 1858. One of the most famous instances of all—commonly (and controversially) linked to prophecies of the end of the world—involved her reported appearance to several shepherding children at Fátima, Portugal, in 1917. The word "apparition," while often used to refer to any supernatural appearance, is very specifically used in reference to Mary's appearances: so-called "Marian apparitions."

Pet Shop Boys - footsteps, 1999

"The recurring line "Footsteps in the dark" recalls the title of a 1977 Isley Brothers song—yes, "Footsteps in the Dark." The very next line, "Only love will break your heart," is a near-echo of the title of two past pop hits: Gene Pitney's 1962 single "Only Love Can Break a Heart" and Neil Young's 1970 single "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" (my emphasis in both cases). "Footsteps" in general virtually mimics the arrangements of a number of popular 1970s R&B/soul ballads, perhaps most notably "You Are Everything," a major 1971 hit by the Stylistics. You might even say that it owes a stylistic debt to a Stylistics song."

Pet Shop Boys - being boring behaviour version, 1990

"It's inspired by a quote by Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of American author F. Scott Fitzgerald ("… someone's wife, a famous writer in the 1920s…"): "… she refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring. She was conscious that the things she did were the things she had always wanted to do."

Pet Shop Boys - one and one make five, 1993

"musically it's a masterpiece."

Pet Shop Boys - building a wall, 2009

"Neil may have had the Berlin Wall in mind as partial inspiration for the song, or at least for much of its imagery. Neil has, in fact, confirmed this"

Pet Shop Boys - go west cover live, 2007

"Nothing better captures the tone of bittersweet joy and drama that permeates Very than PSB's cover of the Village People nugget, 'Go West'. Covered with thick layers of pillowy synths, the track swaps the male-bonding vibe of the original with a wistful demeanor that's lined with a pensive subtext of loss"

Pet Shop Boys - left to my own devices seven inch version, 1988

"Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat" – Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-1967) was a Marxist revolutionary born in Argentina who became a major figure in the Cuban Revolution of Fidel Castro. (His visage has become such a commonplace symbol of the counterculture that it's now a virtual cliché.) Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was a French composer, one of the leading figures of the impressionist movement (though he himself apparently disliked having the term "impressionist" applied to his own work). Both Guevara and Debussy may be viewed as revolutionaries in their respective realms. Their juxtaposition and association with a "disco beat" has often been interpreted—rightly or wrongly—as the Pet Shop Boys' own encapsulization of their musical style and ambitions."

Pet Shop Boys - london, 2002

"What a strange song: a beautiful melody, a gorgeous production, but strange nonetheless. It's the story of a pair of deserters from the Russian army who make their way to London in hopes of forging a new life for themselves—which they do, although they wind up resorting to credit card fraud in order to get by. Singing to a largely acoustic backdrop, Neil adopts the role of one of these emigrés, his voice digitally (and oddly) manipulated throughout the song in such a way to exaggerate his usual vocal idiosyncracies."

Pet Shop Boys - single, 1996

"Single" is meant to be funny. One can hardly hope for a better or more succinct explication of this song than the one that Neil has himself provided: "The narrator is a very glib Euro businessman, a glib Eurocrat who flies business class and likes all his privileges. He tries to pick up chicks at meet 'n' greets. He's pretending to be a sophisticated ladies man: 'Single! Bilingual!'. But he's not really communicating either and he knows it. In actual fact he's a hopeless, tragic wreck."

Pet Shop Boys - domino dancing extended version, 1988

"Neil says that the title of this song was inspired during a stay on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. "In the evening there was nothing to do except play dominoes; this friend of ours [their personal assistant and Chris's roommate, the late Pete Andreas] always used to beat us, and he used to do this celebratory dance."