Behaviour (1990)

Behaviour was recorded in Munich with co-production by German analog synth wiz Harold Faltermeyer. It has acquired the reputation of being the Pet Shop Boys' "downer" album: it has more slow and mid-tempo tracks than any of their other albums (with the possible exception, more than a decade later, of Release), and many of the songs have decidedly somber lyrical themes. Yet it also boasts some of their most striking and memorable melodies and arrangements—in the words of one critic, this is the album on which Tennant and Lowe "demonstrate their songwriting chops"—and is thus very much a fan favorite. In fact, some critics have cited it as the Boys' first "fully mature" album, in which the seemingly frivolous concerns of the past (which had largely been the result of critical misinterpretations anyway) have been left behind and replaced by a much more serious, contemplative worldview. It is a very serious album in which, for one thing, AIDS weighs more heavily over the proceedings than ever before. Carefully listening to Behaviour all the way through in one sitting can be a very moving experience.

In light of the spectre of AIDS—more specifically, the AIDS-related death of a very dear friend of Neil's (as noted below with "Being Boring")—one of my site visitors has shared a fascinating observation. Alfina Wilson notes that all five of the stages of grief first described by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her seminal 1969 work On Death and Dying are represented on the album:

1. Denial: "To Face the Truth"
2. Anger: "Jealousy"
3. Bargaining: "So Hard"
4. Depression: "The End of the World"
5. Acceptance: "My October Symphony," "Only the Wind"

Is Behaviour, at least in part, a reflection—perhaps even a "working through"—of the Boys' own grief processes during this time of their lives as they dealt with both personal and collective mourning in the wake of AIDS?

Incidentally, the title of the original U.S. edition was spelled in the American style, Behavior, although for the 2001 reissue even the U.S. version was assigned the British spelling. (album: UK #2, US #45)

Being Boring

This song was inspired by a quote by Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of American author F. Scott Fitzgerald ("… someone's wife, a famous writer in the 1920s…"): "… she refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring. She was conscious that the things she did were the things she had always wanted to do." The fact that Neil found this quote so inspiring is very revealing. He uses it as the springboard for a heartfelt rumination on the path his life has taken, rendered bittersweet by his success and fame amidst the personal and social devastation wrought by AIDS. Neil has stated that this song was inspired, in particular, by the AIDS-related death of his longtime friend Chris Dowell, whose funeral had also inspired "Your Funny Uncle."

The Pet Shop Boys have cited this melancholy but gorgeous track as one of their finest achievements and personal favorites. It has proven a perennial fan-favorite as well. Not only are the melody and arrangement beautiful, but Neil writes one of his most moving lyrics, including the marvelous line, "I never dreamt that I would get to be the creature that I always meant to be." (Note again the Zelda Fitzgerald influence.) In a slightly truncated version, this song served as the second single released from the album. Its accompanying video, shot by Bruce Weber, was notorious for its brief glimpses of male rear nudity. But now, like the song itself, it's recognized by many as a true classic of the genre.

It should be noted that the lyrics, with its final verse placing it squarely in the 1990s, seriously risked dating the song beyond redemption. But Neil has adapted it for live performances in the new decade (and century), revising the line "Some are missing in the 1990s" to "Some were missing…." It's just too good a song to let a little thing like time render it irrelevant. (single: UK #20, US Dance Sales #10, US Dance #19)

This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave

Lyrically, this song is a recollection of Neil's Catholic school days and the sense of isolation and intense dissatisfaction he felt there. It's a "dream narrative"—as revealed in the last verse, "I dreamt I was back in uniform"—in which he apparently at first doesn't realize where he is; hence the title line at the end of each rendition of the chorus, signaling that ultimate realization. (It's worth noting that after this song was released, the masters at Neil's old school went so far as to express publicly their dismay at their former pupil's stated sentiments.)

One email correspondent has also pointed out a possible connection between the great Irish author James Joyce's semi-autobiographical novella A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man—particularly its opening scene of its protagonist watching a school football match from the sidelines while trying to keep his hands warm—and the lyric "… we shiver in the rain by the touchline," and perhaps with other parts of the song as well. It's a fascinating possibility, though I'm not aware of any commentary by Neil or Chris along these lines.

Musically, the backing track was originally recorded as part of the Pet Shop Boys' aborted bid to score the James Bond film The Living Daylights in 1987. That's Chris, his voice distorted via vocoder, intoning the repeated line, "Everybody jump to attention"—a device that according to the Boys bears the influence of Steve "Silk" Hurley's 1986 house music hit "Jack Your Body."

"It hurts too much to face the truth," sings Neil, which is especially true when the truth you're facing up to is the disintegration of a love relationship. This sad midtempo song covers similar territory as "Jealousy" at the end of this same album (both songs, for instance, describe the narrator lying alone in bed late at night, his lover out with someone else), but does so in a gentler, more poignant manner. You get the distinct impression that, although he's noting how difficult it is to confront the facts, he is in fact now doing so and is preparing himself to move forward in his life without his erstwhile lover. "I know it's time I should grow up," he says. So, in the song's final verse, he tells his lover that, although he's still in love with her (in the booklet that accompanied the 2001 reissue, Neil states flatly that this song tells "a heterosexual story"), he's going to end the relationship. And when he asks her if she cares, it's her turn to face the truth.

Ingeniously, Neil leaves us hanging as to precisely which truth she is now forced to confront. Does she care that the narrator is breaking off their relationship, or doesn't she? But Neil later summarized (again in the 2001 reissue booklet) the basic truth to be faced in this song: "that the person you're in love with is not in love with you."

How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?

A somewhat snide comic putdown of the pretensions and hypocrisies of one or more unnamed rock stars. Allegations and speculations have cited Bono, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, and George Michael, among others (one of my online correspondents has intriguingly suggested Phil Collins, who released his …But Seriously album about a year before Behaviour came out), but Neil has specifically stated that it's no one artist in particular.

It was the second single from the album in the U.S. but the third in the U.K., where it was a "double A-side" with the non-album track "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Keep My Eyes Off You)." The instrumental track of the album version of "Seriously" borrows heavily from the jagged "new jack swing" hip-hop style of then-popular Bobby Brown, although the single and video versions were dramatically remixed by Brothers in Rhythm into a lusher, more fluid soundscape. The video depicted the Boys, especially Neil, acting out their roles as preachy, pretentious rockers.

By the way, the titular question is almost certainly rhetorical. Pop stars actually can expect to be taken seriously when they take public stands on ecology, politics, social issues, and so on simply because so many people—primarily their fans—do take them seriously. The Pet Shop Boys only point out how questionable this all is. More than one of their fans, however, have noted the irony that, in more recent years, the Boys have themselves occasionally taken certain public stands of the sort that they seem to be calling into question in this song. (single: US #93, US Dance Sales #10, US Dance #19)

Neil has said that the wind in this song is a metaphor for domestic violence. But I can't help but feel that it also symbolizes AIDS, blowing through the lives of Neil, Chris, their friends, and society at large. Like the wind it's pervasive and apparently can't be stopped. Like the wind it stirs up things, "blowing litter all around." Like the winds of a terrible storm, or even just the winds of autumn, it's a harbinger of death. "They say it's getting worse," Neil sings ominously, "The trouble that it brings haunts us like a curse." But, despite the inescapable death and destruction, there's reason for hope. For one thing, although Neil says that his "nerves are all jangled," he insists that he will pull through the crisis. And he also notes that "a storm blows itself out": someday AIDS will come to an end.

Neil speaks two simple words at the end of the song—"I'm sorry"—which works more effectively in his stated context of domestic violence. OK, so I'll admit that my AIDS theory probably doesn't hold water, except perhaps on a largely subconscious level.

Indulging his interest in Russian history, Neil read Ian MacDonald's acclaimed 1989 book The New Shostakovich about the great Soviet composer and the challeges that he and other artists faced under a repressive regime that considered the arts merely tools for sociopolitical ends. This inspired Neil to adopt the role of a Russian composer who has dedicated his life and work to the ideals of the Revolution but now feels confused and betrayed in the wake of the recent collapse of communism. His "October Symphony" had been dedicated to the Soviet Union's October Revolution of 1917, but now he wistfully wonders whether he should "rewrite or revise" it, or "change the dedication from revolution to revelation." Hence, the song concerns the plight that confronts any artist—or, for that matter, any person—when nearly everything that gave meaning to his or her life and work has suddenly changed. To put it another way, it's about a personal existential crisis: "Who am I? What am I?"

Cropping up in passing are other references that reveal Neil's familiarity with Russian history and culture. For instance, when he sings, "Shall we remember December instead?" he's probably citing the Decembrist Revolt of 1825, suppressed by Tsar Nicholas I. And the next line, "Or worry about February?" likely points to the February Revolution of 1917, which overthrew Nicholas II. (It wasn't until the October Revolution later that same year that the communists took control.) Even the words "from revolution to revelation" may suggest a return to Russian Orthodox Christian tradition.

The strings in this track were performed by the Balenescu String Quartet. The coda was written, at the Boys' request, "vaguely in the style of Shostakovich" by its leader, Alexander Balenescu.

So Hard

This funny-sad song about a couple's mutual infidelities and resulting distrust of each other was the first single from Behaviour and, in fact, came out in advance of the album (which is the Boys' general habit with their albums' first singles). You can't help but feel that the two characters described in the lyrics deserve each other. Best line: "We've both given up smoking 'cause it's fatal—so whose matches are those?"

Neil has confirmed in print the accuracy of the longstanding rumor that this track contains a brief sample lifted from a porno movie. Indeed, in many mixes (including the album and single versions, although you have to listen closely) you can at times hear what sounds like a man—though Neil stated it was a woman—essentially moaning the title. Largely because of this fact, the title is sometimes cited as a double-entendre, which the Boys have also acknowledged. (single: UK #4, US #62, US Dance #4)

Neil has noted that he and Chris were writing songs for Behaviour at around the same time that he (Neil) was experiencing his first "serious" love affair. Many of the album's songs reflect this fact, though perhaps none so clearly as "Nervously." On the other hand, it wasn't actually written at the same time as the other tracks on the album. Rather, Neil reportedly wrote it—or at least a preliminary version of it—in 1981, even before there was a "Pet Shop Boys." But it may have been Neil's recent romantic experience that inspired him to pull it "from the vaults," so to speak, and to perfect it with Chris.

There's no mystery as to what this song is about. It simply describes in a very gentle, touching manner the nervous anxiety, uncertainty, and anticipation experienced by anyone meeting someone they find attractive and subsequently falling in love. The musical backdrop is particularly effective, with a mildly "jittery" feel that mirrors the narrator's own "jitters," gradually building in intensity as the lyrics simultaneously describe the growing intensity of the narrator's feelings. An underrated yet masterful performance.

Just as the album version of "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously" had borrowed heavily from the contemporary style of Bobby Brown, now came a song that owed so much stylistically to Stock, Aitken, and Waterman that it borders on parody. But if that's the case, what a superb parody it is! The liveliest song on Behaviour, it might have made a highly successful single (Billboard magazine, in its review of the album, predicted as much), yet was never released as such. Neil has also noted a perhaps surprising additional influence: Depeche Mode. Playing electric guitar on this track, Neil was purposely trying to replicate the guitar sound from Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence."

Lyrically, this song is a pretty straightforward plea to listeners not to give up on life just because they've been disappointed in love. Neil, however, gets downright apocalyptic in the final verse (all that stuff about prophets and the Virgin) as he satirizes people's—especially teenagers'—tendencies to equate such disappointments with "the end of the world."

At least, that's what this song means to me. On the other hand, one of my email correspondents suggests an alternate reading: that it may be about a girl suddenly trying to cope with an unplanned pregnancy. Personally, I don't share that view, but you've got to admit that it has potential. I mean, think about it: "… it's just a boy or a girl." Once again, it goes to show how the richness of the Boys' lyrics leaves them open to multiple interpretations.

Jealousy

Although this is the closing track on Behaviour, it dates back several years; in fact, it was the very first song that Chris and Neil wrote together and thus holds a very special place in PSB history. The Boys had originally planned to include an earlier rendition on the Actually album, which was initially slated to be titled Jealousy, but they held off on it for reasons that, as far as I know, they've never explained.

Although the protagonist of this song is indeed grievously wronged by his wayward lover, he's no innocent victim. In fact, with his nagging questions about his lover's behavior ("Where've you been? Who've you seen?") you get the distinct impression that he may have driven his partner away from him. Jealousy is, after all, a rather unattractive and ultimately destructive emotion. That's probably what's going on with the song's overblown orchestral coda, which mirrors the narrator's over-dramatized self-pity.

If there's any doubt about this, consider the "Extended Version" (appearing as a bonus track on the CD single), in which Neil quotes briefly from Shakespeare's Othello—a tragedy in which rampant unjustified jealousy is taken to its logical extreme of murder and suicide. As the villain Iago says of the tragic hero as he gradually succumbs to the jealousy that will prove his downfall:

Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.

It's no accident, then, that the "dramatic setting" of this song is a bedroom where the sleepless narrator torments himself: "At dead of night… I lie alone." He has become the inheritor of Iago's curse on Othello. (single: UK #12)

Further Listening 1990-1991
(bonus disc with the 2001 reissue of Behaviour)

The following song—previously unreleased—does not appear on any Pet Shop Boys album aside from the Behaviour reissue's "Further Listening" bonus disc. Entries for most of the b-sides of the Behaviour-era singles can be found under Alternative (although "We All Feel Better in the Dark" can be found under Disco 2).

A mere 14 seconds in length, this bonus track on the 2001 reissue of Behaviour is the shortest track thus far officially released by the Pet Shop Boys. As its name and brief "lyric" indicate, it was created to serve as a station jingle for Britain's Radio One. The specific impetus was when they sat in for the host on The Simon Bates Show back in 1991. It wouldn't be the last time that Chris and Neil would record something special for Simon Bates.

Discography (1991)

Unlike many artists, when it came time for the Pet Shop Boys to put out their inevitable "greatest hits" collection, it wasn't at all difficult for them to fill a CD to the brim with genuine hits. (At least genuine hits in Britain and various other countries; in the U.S., only about half of the songs had reached the singles chart.) Adding to its appeal is the fact that three of the songs (described in more detail below) were previously unavailable except as singles, and several others were 7" versions that differed to varying degrees from the original album tracks. So Discography proved an excellent collection for the casual and dedicated fan alike. In fact, it was the one-two punch of Discography and then Very that turned this writer into a dedicated PSB fanatic. (album: UK #3, US #111)

West End Girls

Love Comes Quickly

Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)

Suburbia

It's a Sin

What Have I Done to Deserve This?

Rent

Always on My Mind

Heart

Domino Dancing

Left to My Own Devices

It's Alright

So Hard

Being Boring

Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You) (Hewson/Evans/Mullen/Clayton - Gaudio/Crewe)

"It's just show business. There's no difference between Whitney Houston and U2."
                       – Neil in an interview circa 1988

Neil and Chris have said that they were drawn to U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name" by the opening guitar sequence, which struck them as similar to the sort of repeating riff that might be played on a synthesizer. And they claimed that they made it into a medley with the old Frankie Valli chestnut "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" (the original leaves "I" out of its title, while the Pet Shop Boys include it) simply because harmonically it seemed the natural thing to do.

It's certain, however, that they had something much more in mind. In fact, this track is one of the most insidious deconstructions of rock mythology that you're likely to find anywhere. It completely takes the wind out of U2's sails, essentially revealing the original to be precisely the dance track that it is but tries hard not to be. This is underscored in the video and during their "Performance" tour through the use of imagery from the American West, albeit with fey twists. "In our live concert," Neil has stated, "'Streets' was meant to be totally the opposite of anything U2 would ever be—all these dancers and me in a pink satin suit." Turning it into a medley with such an innocuous love song further subverts the song's lyrical mythos, even trivializing it. A musical non sequitur, it can only be explained as outrageous satire, implicitly suggesting that there's little if any substantive difference between the two songs.

It's also no accident that this medley was paired up with "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" as a double A-side single. Both recordings deal in one way or another with the pretensions of pop/rock stars—a fact made all the more apparent by their respective videos, shot in similar styles by the same director in such a way as to emphasize the connection.

Interestingly, Neil and Chris take pride in the possibility that what they did here may have helped to "loosen up" U2, which shortly thereafter began progressively to deconstruct their own image and mythos via the albums Achtung Baby, Zooropa, and Pop. As Neil puts it, "We did with them what they've done with them before they did it, if you know what I mean."

As for U2's original lyrical intent, I had long suspected that this three-quarters Christian band was referring to heaven as a place where the streets have no name. An email correspondent wrote that he believed these Irish lads were actually referring to the fact that, in Northern Ireland, locals made a habit of taking down street signs so that the non-local British police would have great difficulty finding their way around. But perhaps we should let Bono have his own say. On the official U2 website, he states that someone had told him you could tell how much money someone in Belfast makes by the name of the street on which they live. This set him to thinking about a place where the streets have no name—that is, where there aren't any such economic distinctions, or at least where they aren't important. Heaven again? Yet in an extensive interview in the November 3, 2005 issue of Rolling Stone, Bono suggests that it was inspired by a refugee camp in Ethiopia:

"[O]utside the context of Africa, it doesn't make any sense.… In the desert, we meet God. In parched times, in fire and flood, we discover who we are.… [W]here the streets have no name. You can call it 'soul' or 'imagination,' the place where you glimpse God, your potential, whatever."

I like this explanation, but there's no getting around the fact that the story has changed. This just goes to show how one shouldn't put too much stock in what artists say about their own art (re: the "intentional fallacy"). And it also demonstrates once again how a rich piece of work invites multiple interpretations—yes, even from its own creator. (single: UK #4, US #72, US Dance #4)

Jealousy

DJ Culture

Pet Shop Boys lyrics tend to be relatively straightforward. This is about as obscurantist as they get (or maybe second only to "Don Juan"). If it weren't for the fact that they've been quite forthright as to what this track is about, it would be rather difficult to discern it. In short, it's a censure of the militaristic, pro-war sentiments that sprang up in Britain and America during the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq. At least, that's part of what it's about. There also seems to be a good deal of commentary about people who refuse to accept themselves as they are, even going so far as to change their personal appearance. (After noting how some people "re-invent themselves," Neil sings, "Like Liz before Betty, she after Sean," which refers to Elizabeth Taylor after her stay at the Betty Ford Clinic and to Madonna after her marriage to Sean Penn.) All of this, they seem to say, is indicative of an escapist society in which people, "living in a satellite fantasy," allow the mass media to tell them what to think, feel, and believe, as well as how to act.

Neil has noted, "The essence of the song is in the first place insincerity—about George Bush who acted like he was Winston Churchill. He referred to World War II and, as a matter of fact, he sampled things Churchill said, just like artists do with records from the past. That is why it is called 'DJ Culture'." In the video, the line "My lord, may I say nothing?" is spoken by Neil in the role of Oscar Wilde—an independent thinker persecuted by the state for not conforming, which is very much in keeping with the song's overall cultural critique.

The highlight of the song, at least in this writer's opinion, is the breathtakingly beautiful bridge or "middle eight," sung by Neil with a rich backwash of synth strings playing a repeated series of descending chords. The music assumes a simultaneously epic and tragic quality as the lyrics underscore the hypocrisy of mass self-indulgence:

Now, as a matter of pride
Indulge yourself—your every mood
No feast-days or fast-days or days of abstinence intrude

Why let anything—war and religion included—interfere with personal pleasure? Heaven forbid sacrifice. Our musical heroes seem to be suggesting that we are all too willing accomplices in our own deception. It's hard to think of another more scathing social indictment in the Pet Shop Boys' entire body of work. (single: UK #13)

Was It Worth It?

This is PSB in full-out "Stock-Aitken-Waterman mode," as Neil himself has pointed out. A high-energy dance track that also owes more than a slight debt to house music, it can with good reason be viewed as Neil's "coming out" song, although the Boys recorded it about three years before Neil "officially" acknowledged his gayness in print. Positively defiant in the face of obstacles, social and otherwise (such as AIDS), Tennant asserts, "I reserve the right to live my life this way, and I don't give a damn when I hear people say I'll pay the price that others pay." To the question posed in the title, he replies, "Yes, it's worth living for…. Yes, it's worth giving more."

One portion of the song can trace its roots back to the days before Neil and Chris met. In 1980 Neil recorded a rough acoustic demo of a tune he had written titled "The Man on the Television." Part of this song was a sort of "call and response" in which single-word questions like "What?" and "Who?" are shouted out in reply to statements in the lyrics. More than a decade later, the Boys decided to repurpose this idea and even a hint of the melody in the middle-eight bridge of "Was It Worth It?"

The one track on Discography that wasn't released as a single until after the album came out, "Was It Worth It?" unfortunately proved somewhat less successful in Britain than other recent PSB singles, which probably explains the fact that it has the further (and dubious) distinction of having been left off the later PopArt CD collection. But the video—which fortunately did make it onto the PopArt DVD—with Neil singing amidst a rapturously partying crowd complete with drag queens (thus tying in to the song's broader meaning), is a particular hoot. (single: UK #24)

All songs were written by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe unless otherwise noted.

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