Loneliness
Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 2024
Original album - Nonetheless
Producer - James Ford
Subsequent albums - none
Other releases - single
Released digitally on January 31, 2024, with a CD single following in mid-February, "Loneliness" is both the opening track and the first single from the Pet Shop Boys' album Nonetheless. A moderately fast-paced track propelled by a throbbing bass-synth line and actual brass (arranged by trumpeter Ryan Jacob, though possibly augmented by synth-brass as well), Neil's lyrics ask a series of questions about "A cause close to [his] heart," namely the "struggle against loneliness":
Where you gonna run to now from loneliness?
Who you gonna turn to out of loneliness?
….
When you gonna not say no and make the answer yes?
Who is here to help you out?
The second verse features a delightful image drawn from the classic 1964 Beatles film A Hard Day's Night as it refers to "Ringo walking by the canal, downcast and alone…. A man who skims a stone," essentially making him (at least as he appears in that scene) an emblem of loneliness. (We can give Neil a pass on the fact that it's not a canal but actually the River Thames that Ringo is walking along since in the script of the film itself it's also referred to as a canal.)
Not surprisingly given that the Boys wrote it during or perhaps immediately after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, "Loneliness" was largely inspired by the quarantining and social isolation necessitated by that disease. Yet while the lyrics lend themselves to a more generalized, even somewhat philosophical and "omniscient" pondering of such matters—that is, the very fact that virtually all human beings must cope with loneliness at one time or another in their lives, and some far more than others—Neil also (as he so very often does) grants it another level of meaning. He makes it more intimately personal as he adopts a narrative persona that suggests a more dramatic "storyline" to the song. When he follows the question "Who is here to help you out?" with a clearly rhetorical "Oh tell me—can't you guess?" he becomes a specific character speaking to another particular individual, saying in so many words that he is ready to help prevent this other person from being so lonely.
On the other hand, one of my site visitors has suggested that Neil (or his narrative persona) may actually be a bit less empathetic than I've been inclined to give him credit for in this song. As this fellow fan puts it, "Neil's empathy is only going so far." As evidence, consider the lines about Ringo being lonely, saying, "You're taking time to play that part," as well as the statement "When you gonna not say no and make the answer yes?" That's perhaps being somewhat less "sympathetic" and instead more challenging, accusing the person whom Neil is addressing of "playing the part" of being lonesome. It's a matter of how you can take control of your own life and dictate your own response to it, a subject that Neil has addressed in other songs, such as "Miserablism," "Happiness Is an Option," and "You Choose." The burden for solving your problems is on your own shoulders. I believe there's a lot of merit in this way of looking at the song. Maybe it's best to consider a middle ground between the two approaches, one that's both highly empathetic yet personally challenging, like the approach of a good therapist, whose job it is to help his or her client overcome physical, emotional, and/or psychological problems.
Incidentally, I strongly suspect the photography on the single's sleeve is meant to represent the pandemic: the gloves, their hands over their faces, the "standoffish" pose. Their body language practically screams, "Don't come near us!"
Annotations
- The aforementioned lines in which Neil says of "the struggle against loneliness" that it's "a cause close to my heart" is an unusually revealing line on his part about his personal life—assuming, of course, that Neil is his own narrative persona in this song. In other words, Neil would seem to be admitting that he's a lonely person, or at least has been for much of his life. If that's indeed the case, Neil rarely reveals (at least obviously) such intensely personal information about himself in his lyrics, although there has been the occasional past example of his doing so, such as in "Left to My Own Devices" and "Being Boring," among a very few others. Neil has stated that "The Struggle Against Loneliness" was the song's original title.
- The swirling, haunting strings at the beginning of "Loneliness" as well as their recurrence (with chimes) at the track's end are clearly inspired by (if not actually sampled from, though that's uncertain at this time) the opening portion of the 1977 composition Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, of whom Neil is known to be an admirer. Pärt himself is a great admirer of the English composer Britten, who had passed away in 1976.
Mixes/versions
Officially released- Mixers: James Ford, Jas Shaw
- Album/digital single/video version (5:37)
- Radio edit/CD single version (3:18)
List cross-references
- PSB songs with distinct "Beatles connections"
- PSB songs based on classical compositions (and some others with "classical connections")
- How PSB singles differ (if at all) from the album versions
- Real people mentioned by name or title in PSB songs
- Early titles for PSB songs and albums
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