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Sexy Northerner

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 2002
Original album - Disco 3
Producer - (original b-side) Pet Shop Boys; (Disco 3 version) - Pet Shop Boys, Superchumbo
Subsequent albums - Format, Release 2017 reissue Further Listening 2001-2004 bonus disc
Other releases - bonus track with single "Home and Dry"; bonus disc with the U.S. "special edition" of Release; promo single (US Dance #14)

Having previously appeared as a bonus track on the "Home and Dry" CD single and the U.S. "Special Edition" Release bonus disc, "Sexy Northerner" is rendered on Disco 3 in its previously unreleased "Superchumbo Mix" by Tom Stephan—who, incidentally, is a former boyfriend of Neil's. It was also issued as a promo single for the dance market. Regrettably, this remix adheres to the now-all-too-common pattern of discarding nearly all of the original song's lyrics, melody, and structure in favor of a rather repetitive beat-fest in which random snippets of the vocal are scattered about in a seemingly haphazard fashion. It's hardly even a "song" anymore. Yes, it's fabulous to dance to. But otherwise it's rather uninteresting—and, in my opinion, a tremendous bore to listen to.

In its original (and vastly superior) bonus-track rendition, the lyrics consist primarily of a string of descriptive, envious, somewhat gossipy phrases that express wonder at how the young man summed up by the title manages to get away with all that he does. Among them: "hanging 'round the clubs, gets in them for free" and "drinks a lot of beer (at least he doesn't smoke)." And on and on in a similar vein. The narrator marvels, "How does he do it?" The real kicker is the bridge, when, in describing one of the best things about this guy, Neil repeatedly sings the delightful line, "It's not all football and fags." In other words, this guy has many more interests and topics of conversation than that. Whether "fags" here refers to cigarettes (the more traditional U.K. meaning) or to gay men (the most common U.S. meaning, but one that has become increasingly familiar in the U.K. in recent decades) is uncertain, but the likely double entendre is inescapable.

Some fans have speculated that this song may even be about Chris Lowe, or at least loosely based on him; certainly some of the lines fit. After all, he's a non-smoking northerner who, as in the words of the song, "hasn't lost his accent." I'm not so sure that Chris would permit a PSB song to poke fun at him in such a way—but, then again, the Pet Shop Boys haven't hesitated to poke fun at themselves in the past, so why not now? (And, don't forget, Neil's a "northerner," too.) Still, the Boys have insisted on more than one occasion that this song is "about no one in particular."

It should be noted, by the way, that this is one of the few PSB songs essentially devoid of rhyme, which is a comparatively rare occurrence in pop/rock lyrics in general.

Annotations

"It's not all football and fags" – No doubt the "football" being referred to in this line is what Americans call "soccer." As noted above, the "fags" reference is perhaps a little more ambiguous, but certainly the most likely meaning in the context of the song can be found once again in U.K. rather than U.S. vernacular: "fag" is common British slang for a cigarette.
"Don't you dare imply that it's grim up North" – As in the United States (where the North is sometimes referred to disparagingly as "the Rust Belt"), the northern part of Britain has been hit especially hard over the past several decades by the shift from an industrial to a post-industrial economy. Jobs have tended to shift away from manufacturing toward service-sector positions, which has tended to benefit southern England to the detriment of the North. So it's understandable that one might be tempted to describe northern England as "grim." In fact, "It's grim up North" became something of a commonplace observation and catch-phrase during the 1970s and '80s, and even more so after The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (aka The JAMs, aka KLF) released a single with that very title in 1990 and re-released in a different version the following year, at which point it hit #10 on the U.K. singles chart. The Boys were surely quite familiar with the JAMs song when they used its title in this track, although in their official lyrics they don't capitalize it or set it off with quotation marks as they would a song title per se—probably because it wasn't original with The JAMs anyway.

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

Mixer: Pete Gleadall and Pet Shop Boys
- Original version (3:40)
  - Available on Format and on one of the "Further Listening" bonus discs accompanying the 2017 Release reissue
Mixer: Tom Stephan (as Superchumbo)
- Superchumbo Mix (8:36)
  - Available on the CD and vinyl editions of Disco 3
- Superchumbo Dub (8:24)

List cross-references

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