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Bright Young Things

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 2006
Original album - Format
Producer - Chris Zippel, Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - Release 2017 reissue Further Listening 2001-2004 bonus disc
Other releases - bonus track with single "Numb"

British actor, comedian, writer, and (now) director Stephen Fry asked the Pet Shop Boys to record two songs for his 2003 film Bright Young Things. This track was to have been the title song, but the film's producers decided against using it, opting instead to use period music exclusively. (Incidentally, the other song that Neil and Chris are reported to have recorded for the project is a cover of the Noël Coward classic "The Party's Over Now," which does indeed coincide with the period in which the story is set.) Although an unauthorized audio demo circulated briefly on the Internet soon after it was recorded, it had to wait several years for official release. Neil had stated on the official PSB website that "Bright Young Things" might yet be released as one of the bonus tracks on a single from Fundamental. The "Numb" single provided that opportunity, with the released track boasting a somewhat more elaborate arrangement than the aforementioned demo.

The film—a dark, satiric comedy loosely based on Evelyn Waugh's 1930 novel Vile Bodies—concerns a "smart set" of fashionable young Brits living a wild life of parties, booze, and free sex in the period between the two world wars. The label "Bright Young Things," used in the novel but hardly original with Waugh, was often used by contemporaries to collectively describe this set of trendy but aimless youth. (Thanks, by the way, to Jeff Durst for providing information about Waugh and Vile Bodies. I must confess that I've never read the book myself.)

The PSB song bears in many ways a marked similarity to one of their other soundtrack numbers, "Nothing Has Been Proved" (from the film Scandal), most noticeably in the way that its lyrics refer cryptically (from the perspective of anyone who hasn't seen the movie) to various characters in the story, providing tantalizing "snapshots" of their attitudes and actions. It's obvious that these are people who lead lives of scarcely concealed desperation, partying ceaselessly to escape their troubles. ("Sometimes a party's a port in a storm.") Neil's omniscient narrator seems to pity them—"flying," as it were, "on chemical wings"—but it's only an impression; he's too subtle and skillful a lyricist to come right out and say so unambiguously.

Again like "Nothing Has Been Proved," the music could be described as a "slow burn," starting out softly but ominously, building in intensity, employing shifting rhythms (at times noticeably faster in tempo than in the original demo) to evoke different moods while working its way toward several cathartic climaxes. Neil uses his "low voice," à la "Birthday Boy," to add to the overall air of foreboding.

By the way, it's interesting to note the reference in the lyrics to "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square," a 1915 romantic standard that would surely be quite familiar to the characters Neil is singing about. Another of Neil's lines from the song, "Nancy's got a monkey on a silver chain," has its origins not with the novel but rather with a letter written by Waugh at around the same time, describing someone he observed "with a pet monkey on a silver harness." Neil has said that "Nancy" is Nancy Cunard, a British writer and activist who was indeed part of that betwixt-the-wars "smart set." And the line about a character named Stephen—who, after all, has a camera—could be an "in joke" reference to the film's director, Mr. Fry himself. But, as one of my site visitors insightfully noted, later confirmed by Neil himself in the Format booklet, it more directly alludes to Stephen Tennant (1906-87), another prominent "bright young thing" who is generally recognized as having served as one of the models for Sebastian Flyte in Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. Given their common surnames (though no relation), could Neil resist?

Annotations

• This song was written for (but, as it turns out, wasn't actually used in) the 2003 film of the same name, which itself is loosely based on the Evelyn Waugh 1930 novel Vile Bodies. The title phrase appears repeatedly in the novel, but otherwise the lyrics have little or nothing to do with the book. The term "bright young things" (used alternately with "bright young people") was coined by the London tabloid press of the 1920s to refer to youthful urban socialites of the period.
  
  
• As briefly touched upon above, the names mentioned in the song—Lucy, Boy, Nancy, and Stephen—are not those of characters in the film Bright Young Things or the Waugh novel on which it's based. They have other sources, some real-life and others fictional. Again, "Nancy" was inspired by writer/activist Nancy Cunard, and "Stephen" alludes to Stephen Tennant. "Boy" could have been inspired by a relatively minor character (Viscount "Boy" Mulcaster) in another, better-known Waugh novel, Brideshead Revisited. "Lucy" is the most problematic of the bunch, although it could have been inspired by the character of Lucy Simmonds in Waugh's unfinished novel Work Suspended. Then again, it's possible (but doubtful) that Neil chose the name Lucy more or less at random.
  
  
• "Sometimes a party's a port in a storm" – A "port in a storm" is an old English-language metaphorical expression that refers to the fact that, in stormy weather, a ship and its crew are generally much safer docked at port rather than afloat on the rough, open sea. So this line suggests that a party can provide temporary shelter—or at least the temporary illusion of shelter—from the worries and cares of "the real world."
  
  
• "Listen, a nightingale sings in Berkeley Square" – The popular song “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" is a romantic standard written in 1915 that has been performed by numerous artists. Its biggest hit rendition was in 1940 by the Glenn Miller Band. Its allusion in "Bright Young Things" serves largely to help "set the period." Berkeley Square is an actual place, a town square in London's West End. Once a fashionable residential area, it's now mostly commercial, though there remains one highly sought-after residential block.
  
  
• "… flying on chemical wings" – The chemical in question is most likely alcohol, although cocaine was a popular enough drug in the 1920s and '30s to earn a notorious mention in Cole Porter's 1934 song "I Get a Kick Out of You." Other recreational drugs are certainly possible as well.
  

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

• Mixer: Chris Zippel
  • Album/b-side version (4:55)
    • Also on one of the "Further Listening" bonus discs accompanying the 2017 Release reissue
• Mixer: [unknown at this time]
  • Demo (4:26)
    • On one of the "Further Listening" bonus discs accompanying the 2017 Release reissue

List cross-references

• PSB songs with literary references
• Real places mentioned by name in PSB songs
• Real people mentioned by name or title in PSB lyrics
• PSB tracks that contain samples of other artists' music (a "negation" entry that refutes alleged sampling)
• Pop songs mentioned by title in the lyrics of PSB songs
• What it's about: Neil's succinct statements on what a song is "about"

 

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