FEATURE: Groovelines: Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls

FEATURE:

Groovelines

Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls

___________

I am going pretty big when it comes to…

IN THIS PHOTO: Pet Shop Boys (Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant) in 1984

the song for this Groovelines! I have been thinking about some of the most iconic and important songs through the years. In future pieces, I will include songs from female artists. Today, I wanted to highlight Pet Shop Boys’ West End Girls. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have recorded so many classics through their career. They do not come as big and seminal as West End Girls. Released twice as a single – the first time was in 1984 -, the lyrics pertain to inner-city pressure and the nature of class. I am bringing in a couple of articles that provide more story and detail regarding one of the greatest songs of the 1980s. I am a fan of Pet Shop Boys, but I would not say I am a meg-fan who knows their deep cuts and all of their albums. Whilst I love so many of their tracks, it is West End Girls that makes the biggest impression and stays in the mind the longest. The first feature I want to highlight is from Smooth Radio. In 2018, they saluted a truly astonishing song:

“'West End Girls' is one of the most iconic songs of its era.

Its dark mood and synthpop sound will forever make it one of the most memorable songs of the 1980s, and instantly catapulted the Pet Shop Boys into the limelight.

But what is the song about and how was it made? Here are all the facts you need to know:

1. 'West End Girls' meaning and inspiration: What is the song about?

Neil Tennant started to write the song while staying at his cousin's house in Nottingham and watching a gangster film starring James Cagney.

Just when he was about to head to sleep, he came up with the lines: "Sometimes you're better off dead, there's a gun in your hand and it's pointing at your head". The lyrics were inspired by TS Eliot's poem 'The Waste Land', particularly its different narrative voices and mysterious references.

Tennant later said of 'The Waste Land': "What I like about it is, it's the different voices, almost a sort of collage. All the different voices and languages coming in and I've always found that very powerful. So on 'West End Girls' it's different voices. The line 'Just you wait till I get you home' is a direct quotation."

The song's lyrics are about class, and inner-city pressure. Tennant later said that some listeners thoughts the song was about prostitutes, but was actually, "about rough boys getting a bit of posh."

The lyric 'From Lake Geneva to the Finland Station', refers to the train route taken by Vladimir Lenin while being smuggled by the Germans to Russia during World War I. It is assumed that the lyric was inspired by the book To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson.

2. It originally sounded totally different

In 1983, Neil Tennant met producer Bobby Orlando, while working in New York to interview Sting for Smash Hits magazine.

After listening to some of their demos, Orlando offered to produce for the duo's debut album.

In 1983 to '84, the duo recorded 12 songs with Orlando in New York, including 'West End Girls'.

Orlando played most of the instruments on 'West End Girls', including the jazz riff at the end of the song. Chris Lowe played one chord and the bassline.

It also included a drum part taken from Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean', and an arrangement which Tennant called "Barry White chords".

Orlando loved the song's production, and had hoped to make a rap record in a British accent.

3. There was a forgotten lyric about Stalin

The Bobby Orlando-produced version of the single included another line: "All your stopping, stalling and starting/Who do you think you are, Joe Stalin?".

However, it was was removed for the more famous 1985 version.

4. It wasn't a hit at first, and was totally reworked

In April 1984, 'West End Girls' was released, and become a club hit in Los Angeles and San Francisco, but was only available in the United Kingdom as a 12" import.

In March 1985, after long negotiations, Pet Shop Boys ended their deal with Orlando, and hired manager Tom Watkins, who signed them with EMI.

They then re-recorded 'West End Girls' with producer Stephen Hague, and re-released it in late 1985. It topping the charts in both the UK and the US”.

I want to finish with an interview from The Guardian Laura Snapes spoke with Neil Tennant last year after The Guardian names West End Girls as the best U.K. number one ever. Even though it is quite an honour, many would agree with that ranking:

“We named West End Girls the greatest ever UK No 1. Did we get it right?

Well, I would have chosen Good Vibrations. It’s obviously intensely subjective. I can see that West End Girls is quite a lot of records in one record. It’s a dance record. It was actually written to be a rap record, back in the day. It’s a moody soundscape. It’s about the city at night. It’s about boys and girls meeting to have fun and presumably to bond [laughs]. It’s about sex. It’s paranoid. At the same time, its message is sort of like Dancing in the Streets – it’s about escape into the city at night, which is emblematic of pleasure.

When you were writing it, did you have a sense that these elements were potent ingredients for a pop song?

Oh, it was completely instinctive. It was written in early 83. I used to get the records ’cause of being at Smash Hits: Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa. One day I was at my cousin’s and we’d watched a Jimmy Cagney movie. Before going to bed, the opening lines came into my head and so I turned the light on and wrote them down. I got back to London and went with it and wrote a rap. These were the days when Chris [Lowe] and I used to make demos in a little studio off Camden Road. Chris was down from Liverpool University. We went into the studio, and I said to Chris and the guy whose studio it was: “I’ve written this rap!” Rather embarrassingly, I then performed it. Luckily, they were mildly impressed.

Chris and I wrote a piece of music for it, and then ages later we wrote an instrumental with this very beautiful chord change, G major 7th with an E bass. Chris came up with the bassline. When I got home, it occurred to me that when [the track] moved up, you could sing the bit about the West End girls, which had previously been spoken. Amazingly, the first time I ever displayed this to Chris was when we met Bobby O at his New York studio. Bobby O said [loud American voice]: “OK guys, let’s do it!” We played the instrumental live straight on to tape. Bobby goes, “OK, vocal!” And so I go to the microphone and do the whole thing for the very first time. The assistant engineer, a woman called Tracy, said: “Oh, your voice is so easy to listen to!” It sort of had something. And then Bobby O did a load of keyboard overdubs. And there we have it. We recorded three other songs in an hour and a half.

When I went back to Smash Hits, I played three of the four tracks but I didn’t play West End Girls because I was embarrassed about me rapping. David Bostock, the assistant designer, had a cassette-copying setup at his flat. He copied the cassette and he came in and said: “Wow, I like the rap one!” I said: “Do you? I think it’s a bit embarrassing.” He said: “No, it’s great!” So I always think, in making a record and particularly a hit pop record, there’s an enormous amount of luck and serendipity. The way this record came about is not like the making of any other of our records, it’s a total one-off. And I think the record itself is, really.

IN THIS PHOTO: Neil Tennant

Does West End Girls have a queer perspective or has that been retrospectively applied?

I don’t think it does. I think it has an outsider perspective. Ultimately, it’s a celebration of heterosexuality! [laughs] Some of the East End boys might be getting together with West End boys. The idea is really that opposites attract, the glamorous posh girls and the beautiful rough East End boys all meeting in the West End and going clubbing or something. This was a very exciting time for clubbing in the West End of London. You’d go to the Wag Club and see George Michael dancing, and we’d go to Heaven where you heard Bobby O records and hi-NRG. You’d go to the Camden Palace and be in the Star Bar chatting to Spandau Ballet, and of course I knew them all ’cause of Smash Hits. And so the excitement of all these clubs went into our song. I lived such a busy life. I had a job at Smash Hits. Chris and I used to go to the studio, and then we’d go out – I would go to bed at 2am, 3am and be at Smash Hits at 10am, five days a week. Chris and I felt we had a new thing – gay, hi-NRG dance music and hip-hop. I remember the record company people from Factory came into the office one day saying: “The next thing’s gonna be Manchester meets New York.” I immediately felt jealous because it’s what Chris and I wanted to do. [Laughs.]”.

I like the images of opposites colliding. Two different sides of London. The posher and classier West End mentioned alongside the grittier and less pretentious East End. West End Girls is a thrilling song one can lose themselves in! Since its original release, the song has reached new generations and been crowned among the best songs ever released. There is no doubt in my mind that the mighty West End Girls is…

ONE of the all-time great songs.

FEATURE:

Groovelines

Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls

Sam Liddicott