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Hey, Headmaster

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 1993
Original album - Alternative
Producer - Pet Shop Boys, Stephen Hague
Subsequent albums - Very 2001 reissue Further Listening 1992-1994 bonus disc
Other releases - b-side of single "Can You Forgive Her?"

My attitudes about this song have changed somewhat since I first wrote about it here, although it took an email from one of my regular site visitors to inspire me actually to write about those changes. But perhaps my ambivalence is understandable in light of Neil's own admission (in the Alternative booklet) that, regarding this song, he "never quite know[s] what it's about."

For a long time the lyrics struck me as being about a headmaster who has always been rather repressed in his life and behavior, ever sticking close to his school, but who now is seriously considering opening himself up more to travel, socialize with friends (and perhaps even lovers) and, in general, enjoy life more. Those around him, particularly the boys in his charge, notice this change in his attitude and therefore ask, "What's the matter with you?" In other words, this improvement in his personal life is so out of character for him that, ironically, it causes concern among others. In many ways it seemed reminiscent to me of the James Hilton novel Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

At least, that's what I thought for a long time. But Neil has also stated that, as he sees it, "there's been some terrible sex scandal and the headmaster's about to be arrested or something like that…. Actually, I think that at the end of the song the headmaster is going to kill himself." And there's no denying that there's something terribly wrong at the school, parallelled in the mood of the headmaster himself. He's "always so serious… [and] so blue." Even the football team is experiencing "disintegration." And at the end of the song, when our headmaster hero has a chance to get away from the school to enjoy a "reading party on the coast," he seems very reluctant to do so: "Hey, headmaster, aren't you gonna go?" So while he may indeed be seriously considering opening himself up to more of "life," as I originally believed, I'm much less certain now that he will actually do so. As Neil suggests, the final outcome may be much sadder.

Then again, it's an artistic fiction in which nothing of the story truly exists aside from what we're actually told. There is no real "final outcome." To put it another way—what happens to Horatio after Hamlet is all over and done with? Nothing, really. When the play ends, Horatio ceases to exist.

By the way, in the booklet accompanying the 2001 reissue of Very, Neil notes that "Hey, Headmaster" is one of those occasional PSB songs written almost totally by himself, with minimal input from Chris. In fact, he had composed it in its original form before the two even met.

Annotations

This is one of two PSB recordings (the other being "One Thing Leads to Another") for which the rhythm/percussion track is most likely based on a drum loop sampled from the 1969 record "Amen, Brother" by the U.S. funk/soul band The Winstons. The speed and pitch of the loop has, however, been shifted somewhat. That particular drum loop—lifted from a brief drum solo within the original Winstons recording—has been used so often in hip-hop and dance music that it has acquired its own nomenclature: the "Amen Break." Some have claimed that it's the single most sampled audio segment in popular music history.
The last verse mentions a reading party, which may sound strange to some. Reading parties have long been a popular social activity in academic communities and among lovers of literature—a chance for (shall we say) intellectually oriented people to get together informally to socialize, eat, drink and, of course, read. The reading can take various forms; for instance, the party's host may choose a book that the participants take turns reading aloud, or each attendee may read aloud a short passage of his or her own choosing. Sometimes there are even silent reading parties in which people read something of their own choosing to themselves (everyone doing so in the same room—sorry, don't ask me why), or they may all read the same thing to themselves and then discuss it as a group it afterwards (which makes a lot more sense to me). If all this sounds rather dull, keep in mind that such evenings are very often fueled with alcohol. They can be little more than excuses for ordinarily repressed academic types to let their hair down and have fun with like-minded individuals in the same socio-academic boat, all under the guise of an ostensibly intellectual pursuit. And in those cases (such as alluded to in the song) where the guests have traveled some distance, far from where they live and work, and are invited to stay overnight— Well, let's just say it can actually prove anything but dull. Mind you, not that I have any personal experience with that sort of thing.
"… you old bibliophile" – The word bibliophile is derived from ancient Greek, meaning "lover of books." Interestingly, Neil pronounces the last syllable of the word like the name "Phil" so that it rhymes quite nicely with the concluding words of the next two lines, "will" and "kill." I long figured this was simply a dialectal difference between British English and American English since in the U.S. we pronounce the last syllable like the word "file." But I've found that, on the contrary, "file" is apparently the preferred pronunciation in both the United States and Britain. So either Neil is using an alternate dialectal pronunciation (because, after all, there are many dialects of English both in Britain and the States) or he purposely chose to "mispronounce" the word to make a better rhyme.
"… give you time to think and time to kill" – If, as Neil has suggested, the "headmaster" in this song is a candidate for suicide, then the metaphorical cliché "time to kill" takes on ominous overtones: will he have time to kill himself? As he so often does as a lyricist, Neil subverts clichés by giving them—or at least suggesting—whole new meanings.
One of my site visitors suggested an interpretation of this song that, after carefully reconsidering the lyrics, I can't dismiss out of hand despite my intense personal distaste for the subject. He suspects that it may be alluding, however obliquely, to pedophilia, and that the headmaster addressed in the lyrics may be guilty of the crime, or at least is about to be charged and convicted. The following items might be taken as evidence of this theory:
- In the U.K., private schools are often referred to as "independent" schools. Recent years have seen a great many pedophilia scandals at U.K. independent schools, particularly boarding schools. The lyrics of "Hey, Headmaster" twice employ the word "independent," perhaps hinting specifically at such independent schools.
- Could the final verse's "invitation in the post to a reading party on the coast" be a coy way of referring metaphorically to the fact that the headmaster is about to be charged with a crime and sent to prison? The lyrics then say that there he will be there with this "friends" (fellow prisoners, maybe even fellow pedophiles?) and have "time to think and time to kill with independent hosts." Perhaps those "independent hosts" are government prison wardens.
- Consider the line "Pack your bags up, you old bibliophile." Now substitute "pedo-" for "biblio-." Could Neil have chosen the unusual word "bibliophile"—no doubt a perfectly apt description of a bookish school headmaster, but somewhat unusual nonetheless—for precisely this reason?
- As noted above, Neil himself has said that "there's been some terrible sex scandal and the headmaster's about to be arrested or something like that…. Actually, I think that at the end of the song the headmaster is going to kill himself." When you get right down to it, pedophilia is the most likely type of sex scandal that might result in suicide under such circumstances.

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