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DJ Culture

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 1991
Original album - Discography
Producer (album version) - Brothers in Rhythm, Pet Shop Boys; (single version) - Brothers in Rhythm, Pet Shop Boys, Stephen Hague
Subsequent albums - PopArt, Behaviour 2001 reissue Further Listening 1990-1991 bonus disc, Smash
Other releases - single (UK #13)

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 before 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. In fact, as one of my site visitors has pointed out, in so doing Neil has essentially "sampled" Wilde, an act that parallels precisely the sort of "political sampling" that inspired the song in the first place, though surely not with the insincerity that the Boys were otherwise commenting on.

This song's remarkably dense backing track is layered with "scratching" and other sampled "found sounds" that metaphorically underscore the theme of a DJ culture, musically exemplifying the construction of a new reality out of bits and pieces drawn from other sources. But the musical highlight, 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 outline 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.

Annotations

As noted above, this song was largely inspired by the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq.
"Dance with me" – It can be easily overlooked coming from a band famed for their dance-oriented music, but this recurring line from the chorus likely isn't referring to actual dancing at all. Rather, it's another way of saying, "Play along with me"—as evidenced by the very next line, "Let's pretend"—while simulataneously evoking the familiar English-language idiom of "dancing around the truth." In other words, when the narrator suggests that we dance with him, he's asking us to play along with the collective cultural falsehoods that lie at the heart of this song.
"And I, my lord—may I say nothing?" – A paraphrase (in effect, a "sample") of the words spoken by Oscar Wilde immediately after he was sentenced in 1895 to two years of hard labor for homosexual offenses: "And I? May I say nothing, my lord?"
"No feast days or fast days or days of abstinence intrude" – These words echo text from British author Graham Greene's 1940 novel The Power and the Glory, in which it is said of the main character, an alcoholic Catholic priest, "The years behind him were littered with similar surrenders—feast days and fast days and days of abstinence had been the first to go…."
"Like Liz before Betty" – In other words, like Elizabeth Taylor before her stay at the Betty Ford Center (popularly known as the "Betty Ford Clinic") in Rancho Mirage, California. The famed British-American actress checked herself in twice (in 1983 and 1988) for treatment for alcoholism and prescription drug addiction.
"She after Sean" – That is, like Madonna after Sean Penn. Singer Madonna was married to actor Sean Penn from 1985 to 1989. It proved a tumultuous marriage; Penn was at one point charged with felony domestic assault, although it was pleaded down to a misdemeanor. Madonna has accepted her share of the blame for the failure of the marriage as well, conceding that she was "completely obsessed" with her career at the time and not ready to be as "generous" in the relationship as she should have been. She emerged from the experience, however, with one of her finest albums, 1989's critically acclaimed Like a Prayer, which she considered her "coming of age record."
"Suddenly you're missing, then you're reborn" – Both Elizabeth Taylor and Madonna briefly went "missing," or at least attempted to adopt lower public profiles, during the transformative experiences mentioned just before this line. With their respective re-emergences—Liz from the Better Ford Clinic, Madonna from her marriage with Sean Penn—they were, in effect, "reborn."
The French-speaking voice ("Attention…" and "trente-neuf…," among a few other words) heard at the beginning of the song (and perhaps again, much more subtly, toward the end) seems to have been sampled from a few scattered scenes in director Jean Cocteau's famed 1950 film Orphée (released in the U.S. as Orpheus). As to why these words may have been sampled from this particular film is uncertain. It may be a reflection of the song's commentary on "cultural sampling" for political ends and/or it may involve the theme of "living in a fantasy" considering certain fantastical elements of the film's plot. In fact, as one of my site visitors has pointed out to me, the notion of "sampling" plays a role in the film in that a personified Death has taken (sampled?) bits of a dead young writer's poetry and has broadcast them as seemingly meaningless, disjointed phrases on the radio, which the character of Orpheus hears and decides to appropriate, in effect "sampling" them in his own poetry. So the Boys may have chosen to "sample" the film on account of this aspect of its story. On the other hand, maybe they just liked the sound of it.

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

Mixer: Stephen Hague
- 7" Mix (4:26)
  - Available on the Further Listening bonus disc with the Behaviour reissue
- 7" Mix Edit (aka "Short Version") (4:14)
  - Available on Discography
- 7" Mix (4:21)
  - A slightly shorter version available on PopArt
Mixer: Brothers in Rhythm
- Extended Mix (6:53)
  - Available with the single and on the Further Listening bonus disc with the Behaviour reissue
Mixer: The Grid
- DJ Culturemix (5:49)

Official but unreleased

Mixer: The Grid
- 7-inch remix (4:02)
  - 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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