No Excuse

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 2017
Original album - Release 2017 reissue Further Listening 2001-2004 bonus disc
Producer - Pet Shop boys
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - (none)

A major portion of this song written by Chris and Neil in 2003 was later repurposed for the later b-side "Up and Down." Nevertheless, the Boys felt that the original song was, as Neil once put it, "actually quite good," so they clearly considered it worth releasing—which they ultimately did as one of the bonus tracks accompanying the 2017 reissue of Release.

The song offers what Neil has described as a "very controversial lyric" that includes a reference to the infamous 1960s London gangster Ronnie Kray's homosexuality. The gist of the song, however, is much broader than that, concerning (in the Boys' own words) "abusive behaviour." The lyrics simply outline in a very succinct fashion several situations in which people too often indulge in behavior that insults, offends, and/or harms other people—ranging from art to internet postings, from road rage to getting drunk—and assert in no uncertain terms "that's no excuse."

By no means does this song boast one of the most artful or subtle of PSB lyrics. But, at least in the opinion of this writer, it's an incredibly timely statement in the age of President Trump, despite having been written more than a decade before.

Annotations

Neil took the opening line from a banner he had recently seen during a visit to New York City: "BAD ART IS STILL ART."
'No one dared to say when he was free and alive that Ronnie Kray was gay" – Twin brothers Ronald "Ronnie" and Reginald "Reggie" Kray were notorious London gangsters in the 1950s and '60s, greatly feared for their violent behavior, including murder. Yet they also achieved a tremendous measure of celebrity as major figures of London's nightlife during the "Swinging Sixties." Following their arrest in 1968, they were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Ronnie—who professed to bisexuality, though he was predominantly homosexual in his actual behavior—died of a heart attack in prison in 1995 at age 61. (And if you're wondering how back in those days he could have gotten away among his peers with being as open as he was about having sex with other men, keep in mind that he was not a man to be trifled with. In fact, Ronnie was the more dangerous and unpredictable of the two; he was eventually certified criminally insane.) His brother Reggie lived about five years longer, succumbing to inoperable cancer in 2000 less than two months after having been released from prison on humanitarian grounds so that he could spend the final weeks of his life with his wife.

Although they were identical twins, it became easy to tell them apart as they got older because Ronnie often wore glasses and grew more heavyset than Reggie. Both brothers had been boxers in their youth, and they were known on more than one occasion to put their pugilistic skills to use in breaking noses and jaws. And some have claimed that Reggie also dabbled in bisexuality, although if that's true, he was undoubtedly far more heterosexually oriented than his brother.

List cross-references

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