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To Step Aside

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 1996
Original album - Bilingual
Producer - Pet Shop Boys, Chris Porter
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - single (US Dance #1)

It's not a subject that Pet Shop Boys fans want to think about, but it's inevitable: the day that the Pet Shop Boys cease to be. Neil and Chris must of course think about it, too. And that's what's going on in this song, in which Neil ponders what he would do "if I decide to step aside." What first sets him off in this reverie is a scene he witnesses from a hotel room in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, of religious pilgrims converging on a nearby cathedral. He can't help but think that these people experience a depth of meaning in life that he, though living in the lap of comparative luxury ("all the champagne that I drink"), cannot know. From another window (this time in Budapest, Hungary) he sees poor workers, who formerly toiled without reward under the communist system, now struggling just as hard as they wait (in vain?) for the "market forces" of capitalism to reward them.

Interestingly, Neil portrays himself as very much a figurative and literal "insider," kept apart from the more mundane yet conversely much more profound concerns of the masses. He can't help but think that there's much more to life than the pursuit of comfort and pleasure—and much more to his life than his career as musician and pop star. So his mind is filled with questions of what course his life would take if he were "to step aside" and walk away from it all. Despite the upbeat, even bouncy musical setting (including extremely effective use of acoustic guitar), this is one of the most serious, contemplative, and indeed personal songs in the Pet Shop Boys' entire body of work. By the way, the strange background vocals (you either love 'em or hate 'em) are sampled from a recording of Gypsy music. (See the fourth bullet-point annotation below for further details.)

It's also worth noting that "To Step Aside"—which was released as a "dance single" in the United States, with a plethora of remixes—earned the Pet Shop Boys a Grammy nomination in the category of "Best Dance Recording." Unfortunately, it lost out to Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's "Carry On."

Annotations

The title is borrowed from a 1939 collection of short stories by British playwright and songwriter Noël Coward (1899-1973).
"By the cathedral, into the sun / Pilgrims are singing, their journey done" – The specific cathedral referenced here is Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, a Roman Catholic cathedral of the archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. Because it is the reputed burial place of one of the apostles of Jesus Christ, St. James (Spanish San Diego, aka Santiago), it has for centuries served as the final destination of a pilgrimage known as "The Way of St. James." Every year literally thousands of pilgrims travel the route, crossing several hundred miles in northern Spain. The cathedral itself dates back to the year 1075, when its construction began, although smaller churches and chapels had been located at the site for hundreds of years before.
"I look from my window, down to the square / At workers still queueing patiently there" – The square referred to here is, as noted above, in Budapest, Hungary, although precisely which square is uncertain. Also as already discussed, Hungary had, like the rest of Eastern Europe, recently thrown off communism. Neil is describing how the workers there are waiting for capitalism to bring about the improved standard of living that the preceding fifty-odd years of communism had failed to provide. (An incidental spelling note: The lyrics as printed on the Pet Shop Boys' official website use the spelling "queuing" in the lines quoted above, whereas I'm using the spelling "queueing." Both spellings are considered acceptable. But I'm going with "queueing" as opposed to the official "queuing" simply because—speaking on a strictly idiosyncratic personal level—"queuing" strikes me as the visual equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard.)
This track contains very noticeable and distinctive samples from a recording of Spanish Gypsy music, which the Boys chose because they felt it sounded like the chanting of religious pilgrims. For more than two decades, however, precisely which recording provided the samples remained a mystery. But on November 15, 2019, site visitor Xavier RIOU contacted me to report his discovery that these samples were drawn from a 1995 sample CD titled World Colours published by the German company Best Service. This CD is described by Best Service as "An outstanding collection of world instruments and percussions. This library includes a lot of gypsy instruments, vocals, steps, claps, flamenco guitars, grooves, shouts, fiddles, tambura, darbuka, steel guitar, clarinet, accordion, sinti jazz guitar, gypsy-guitars, flamenco claps & stabs.… more than 1000 samples created by over 100 musicians from 12 different countries like Spain, Italy, Russia, Yugoslavia, Mexico, India, Pakistan and many more." Xavier has pinpointed the precise samples and has illustrated his observations in his own YouTube video.

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

Mixer: Bob Kraushaar
- Album version (3:48)
  - Available on Bilingual
Mixer: Brutal Bill
- Brutal Bill Mix (7:29)
  - Available on the Bilingual "Special Edition" bonus disc
- Brutal Bill's Mix 2 (9:51)
Mixer: Davidson Ospina
- Davidson Ospina Dub (7:31)
- Davidson Ospina Dub 2, aka "Ospina Crazy Dub" (7:28)
Mixer: Vinny Vero
- Hasbrouck Heights Mix (8:55)
- Hasbrouck Heights Radio Mix (4:00)
- Quiet Mix (3:42)
- Vox Mix (3:25)
Mixer: Ralph Rosario
- Ralphi's Disco Vox (9:13)
- Raphi's House Vox II (7:31)
- Ralphi's Old School Dub 1 (7:38)
- Ralphi's Old School Dub 2, aka "Ralphi's Fierce Dub" (9:10)
- Ralphi's Old School Dub - Edit (7:00)

Official but unreleased

Mixer: Brutal Bill
- Brutual Bill 7-inch Mix (3:36)
- Brutal Bill's Spiritual Uplift Mix (10:03)
Mixer: Vinny Vero
- Champagne Beats (3:53)
- Hasbrouck Heights Brazilian Anthem Dub (8:59)
Mixer: Ralph Rosario
- Ralphi's Fierce Dub (9:08)
- Ralphi's Single Mix (3:41)
  - This second unreleased Ralphi mix appears on an official EMI reference CD by Abbey Road Studios designed for client review before determing the tracks for the 2001 reissues bonus Further Listening discs.

List cross-references

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