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My October Symphony

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 1990
Original album - Behaviour
Producer - Harold Faltermeyer, Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - (none)

Indulging his interest in Russian history, Neil read Ian MacDonald's acclaimed 1989 book The New Shostakovich about the great Soviet composer and the challenges 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 Balanescu String Quartet. The coda was written, at the Boys' request, "vaguely in the style of Shostakovich" by its leader, Alexander Balanescu.

Annotations

As noted above, Neil has stated that this song was partly inspired by Ian MacDonald's 1989 book The New Shostakovich, a critical study of of the music of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975).
Although it opens with a "choral shout" of "Октябрь" (the Russian word for "October") sampled from a recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 2, and it boasts a string coda performed by the Balanescu String Quartet that's written "vaguely in the style of Shostakovich," the song "My October Symphony" doesn't seem to be based on any particular classical composition. And though its protagonist may be in some ways Shostakovich-like, it certainly can't be taken as Shostakovich himself since he died well before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the turn of events on which the lyric is essentially predicated.
As with the earlier Behaviour track "Being Boring," the rhythmic/percussion pattern of "My October Symphony" is based on (though probably not actually sampled from) a recording closely associated with James Brown. In the case of "My October Symphony," it appears to be the 1971 track "Hot Pants – I'm Coming, I'm Coming, I'm Coming" by Brown associate and frequent collaborator Bobby Byrd, which is also credited to Brown as composer, from whose own better-known hit "Hot Pants" released earlier that same year it's a musical spinoff. Literally hundreds of tracks by other artists have sampled its drum beats—or at least, as is most likely the case with the PSB recording, recreated them in the studio.
Once again, the protagonist's "October Symphony" is dedicated to the Russian October Revolution of 1917, and the other months he mentions (December and February) may also have been chosen by virtue of their importance to Russian revolutionary history as well (described in more detail above).
"It's so bemusing…" – Few words in the English language are more often misused and misunderstood than "bemusing." Fortunately, Neil uses it quite correctly. Rather than employ it as a synonym for "amusing"—as so many people mistakenly do—Neil rightly uses it to mean "confusing" or "bewildering."
Writing in October 2020 for The Quietus in recognition of the thirtieth anniversary of the release of Behaviour, music journalist Fergal Kinney brilliantly observed that, although "My October Symphony" is directly inspired by and essentially "about" the collapse of the Soviet Union—

… almost all of the questions [Neil is] asking are pertinent to gay life at the turn of 1990 [in the wake of the AIDS crisis]. What do we do when revolutions bring disappointment ("We've been thinking how October's let us down"), how do we commemorate ("Mourn the war-torn dead?"), and what becomes of an uncertain future—the song's central question, "Shall I revise or rewrite my October symphony?" We must, sniffs Tennant at one point, be very brave.

I have to confess that this interpretation had never occurred to me, but now it seems all but inescapable.
Samples from this song of Neil singing the word "October" have been used in TikTok audio snippets of the names of months taken from various artists' songs, which TikTok users then use in their own videos. One such video that apparently went viral in late 2021 was of a young woman showing how she had lost weight from one month to the next for a full year.

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