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The Pet Shop Boys' work with Cicero

David Cicero—who goes professionally only by his surname—is an American-born but Scotland-raised singer-songwriter-keyboardist whom the Pet Shop Boys took on as a protégé in 1989. Apparently he attended a PSB concert that year, at which he managed to get a demo tape to their friend and assistant Peter Andreas. He passed it on to Chris and Neil, who liked what they heard.

Cicero proved to be the most prolific artist on the Boys' own short-lived Spaghetti Recordings label. All of his Spaghetti releases appeared during the two-year period 1991-92, although he remained signed to the label until 1996, at which time his professional relationship with PSB was amicably severed. Since then he has maintained a low profile in the music industry with little recorded output.

Aside from simply being mentors and label-owners, the Boys were directly involved in one way or another with each of the following tracks, most of which appear on his 1992 album Future Boy (the cover of which is depicted here).

Heaven Must Have Sent You Back to Me
by Cicero

Writers - Cicero
First released - 1991
Original album - Future Boy (Cicero)
Producer - David Jacob, Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - single (UK #70)

Chris and Neil provided "additional production" for this 1992 release. It's actually a remix of Cicero's debut single released the previous year with little if any direct PSB involvement (aside from being released on their label; the producer of the original track was David Jacob), but it had failed to reach the UK Top 100. The Boys beefed it up, giving it more of a "PSB sound," and upon re-release it got as high as #70 the second time around. What's more, Chris directed the video.

Love Is Everywhere
by Cicero

Writers - Cicero
First released - 1991
Original album - Future Boy (Cicero)
Producer - Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - single (UK #19)

Again, the Pet Shop Boys served as producers for this 1991 single, the second release by their young discovery. Neil also sings background vocals. It proved to be Cicero's biggest hit, reaching #19 on the UK singles chart.

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

Pet Shop Boys mixes only:

 

That Loving Feeling
by Cicero

Writers - Cicero
First released - 1992
Original album - Future Boy (Cicero)
Producer - Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - single (UK #46)

Another track produced by Chris and Neil. Once more Neil sings backup. Cicero's third single, it reached #46 on the UK charts.

Here's an interesting bit of related trivia: the video for this song features PSB Riverside, a football (soccer) team sponsored by the Pet Shop Boys. (Did you know that PSB sponsored a football team?) In the video, Cicero adopts the role of a goalkeeper (goalie) for the team.

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

Pet Shop Boys mixes only:

 

My Middle Class Life
by Cicero

Writers - Cicero
First released - 1992
Original album - Future Boy (Cicero)
Producer - David Jacob, Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - (none)

The Boys co-produced this non-single track from Cicero's 1992 Spaghetti album Future Boy.

Live for Today
by Cicero with Sylvia Mason-James

Writers - Cicero
First released - 1992
Original album - The Crying Game (original soundrack - various artists)
Producer - Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - Future Boy: The Complete Works
Other releases - single (didn't chart)

The Boys produced this 1992 single for Cicero and also saw fit to include it (in two versions) on the soundtrack for The Crying Game. Unfortunately, unlike their production of the film's title track for Boy George, this release failed to chart.

She Has a Way
by Cicero

Writers - Bobby Orlando
First released - 1996 (?)
Original album - none
Producer - Pet Shop Boys (and Pete Gleadall?)
Subsequent albums - none
Other releases - single (? - didn't chart)

This track appears to have a remarkably complicated history. The song first saw light of day in 1982 as a single written, produced, and performed by Bobby 'O' Orlando, who (as every die-hard Pethead knows) proved instrumental in the early years of the PSB saga. As Cicero would later describe, "the Pet Shop Boys loved [it] and wanted me to cover [it]." This he did in 1992. It was even tentatively slated as a single. But, for whatever reason, his original cover version produced by the Boys (likely working with Pete Gleadall) long remained unreleased. Some online sources suggest, however, that either this same track or a different rendition of the song by Cicero may have been released in 1996 on the Clubscene Records label. But details about and independent confirmation of this alleged release are frustratingly absent, indicating that perhaps those sources are mistaken and it has never been officially released. What is for certain is that Cicero himself posted a recording of it, labeled the "PSB Mix" and dated 1992, on his own YouTube channel in 2021. It would seem then that this is the original version that he recorded with the Boys. Meanwhile, several mixes—apparently including that one, labeled "7-inch master mix"—had surfaced somewhere along the line on a demo cassette and have seen bootleg release. Among the tracks on this cassette is a largely instrumental rendition somehow labeled "Any Other Child," which would go on to assume an erroneous life of its own among alleged unreleased Pet Shop Boys tracks. The other mixes of "She Has a Way" on that bootleg include a "12-inch master mix," a "Fluffy Mix," and a "demo."

List cross-references

 

 

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