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One More Chance

Writers - Lowe/Orlando/Tennant
First released - 1984
Original album - Actually
Producer (album version) - Julian Mendelsohn; (original version) - Bobby Orlando
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - single (in some countries)

An older tune from the Boys' Bobby O days, previously released in a more "primitive" version as an unsuccessful 1984 single in several countries (including Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands) well before the release of Please and now resurrected for Actually.

Extremely straightforward, it's basically a plea to a former (or soon-to-be-former) lover to give the narrator "one more chance." Interestingly, he seems to maintain that he's the wronged party, unfairly maligned by people who've been spreading rumors and lies about him. Now, thrown over by his lover as a result of these tales, he wanders city streets in a distressed state of mind, feeling as though he's been pushed into a corner. Meanwhile, the jittery, hard-edged music parallels the narrator's sense of agitated desperation.

The original pre-Please single release was, incidentally, credited to "Tennant/Orlando" as songwriters. That early version's backing track was adapted from that of "Rock Me," an unreleased number Bobby O(rlando) had planned to be recorded by another artist with whom he was working, Divine (of Pink Flamingos fame). But Chris made subsequent contributions and thereby gained his final co-writing credit on the Actually version.

Annotations

This song is registered with BMI under the title "One More Chance Tonight," a line which is indeed employed in the lyrics. It would seem that that was its early title before the Boys decided to simplify it.
In the book Pet Shop Boys, Literally, Neil tells Chris Heath that this song originally contained a rather unusual couplet:

You, you're so extreme
Your silk-screened life shot through with bullets

For whatever reason—though I suspect it's because that couplet isn't particularly good, and the Boys knew it—they decided against using those lines in the final version.

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

Mixer: Julian Mendelsohn
- Album version (5:31)
  - Available on Actually
Mixer: Stephen Hague and Pet Shop Boys
- 7" mix (3:49)
  - Available on the Further Listening bonus disc of the Actually reissue
Mixer: Bobby Orlando

Bobby O Remix (aka 7" mix and 12" mix) (5:33)
Dub Mix (4:43)

Mixer: The Magnificent Kordak

The Kordak Mix (3:31)

Mixer: Manfred Alois Segieth
- Hurricane Mix by Tess (3:21)

Remix '88 (aka New Remix '88) (4:57)

Mixer: Mario Aldini
- West End Megamix (aka ZYX Megamix) (8:04)
  - Combines "West End Sunglasses," "One More Chance," and "West End Girls"
- Ultimate Mix (5:35)
  - Combines "Sunglasses at Night" (non-PSB), "One More Chance," and "West End Girls"

Official but unreleased

Mixer: unknown
- Nearly a dozen different early demo-type versions and fragments of "One More Chance" have come to light on bootleg releases, ranging from a little over one minute to nearly five minutes in length.
Mixer: Pet Shop Boys
- October 9, 2013 KCRW radio session version (2:48)
  - Part of a medley, so timing is approximate

List cross-references

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