Your Early Stuff
Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 2012
Original album - Elysium
Producer - Andrew Dawson, Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - (none)
In an interview with Music Week, Neil described this as "a funny song… a compilation of things that taxi drivers have said to me in recent years." The chorus goes:
You've been around and you don't look too rough
I still quite like some of your early stuff
Other lines describe how the speakers suspect the Boys are "more or less retired now" and speculate that they're still making music only because they "need the money." Neil provided further details in an interview with Will Hodgkinson of The Times Saturday Review: "'My mum really likes you' is one we get a lot. Worse than that is 'I used to really like you' and that is meant to be a compliment. Some lad came up to us the other day and said 'My dad used to really like you.' Well, thank you for that."
One of the most interesting aspects of this phenomenon is the difference in perception between speaker and listener. I'm sure that the people who offer such comments consider them compliments and polite expressions of interest. Naturally, the Boys would see things differently. The fact that they "quite like some of [their] early stuff" implicitly indicates that they don't much care for their more recent work. For that matter, they liked only "some" of the early material.
Though it's quite different musically, this rather short song is lyrically somewhat in the mold of "Yesterday, When I Was Mad," which consisted largely of dubious, backhanded compliments that various people had actually offered the Boys. Yet the "funny" aspect of "Your Early Stuff" is undercut by the rather downbeat sound of the music, which lends an air of melancholy, maybe even some bitterness. Still, it shows that the Boys aren't afraid to poke some fun at themselves, exposing as it does some of the less than wholly complimentary ways in which they're widely perceived beyond the confines of dedicated PSB fandom.
Annotations
- In the January 2013 issue of the official PSB fan club publication Literally, Chris says that he included in this track a subtle quotation of the bassline from "West End Girls" as a "musical joke." (It apparently occurs at times 1:09 through 1:26.) Given the subject matter of "Your Early Stuff," it makes perfect sense. I should admit, however, that I do have trouble hearing it (though it's more prominent in the instrumental version). But in this regard I'm in excellent company: Neil himself has confessed that he hadn't noticed it, either, until Chris pointed it out to him.
- Since we're on the subject of musical quotations, "Your Early Stuff" includes another near quotation during its bridge, in the melody of the lines "Those old videos look pretty funny / What's in it for you now?" If you compare this melodic segment to the opening lines of the earlier "Night Song"—"Evening's coming on like a lovely buttered scone / Night will soon appear"—you'll notice a distinct similarity. They're certainly not identical, to be sure, but they're similar enough to make one wonder whether it's an intentional or accidental "recycling" of material by songwriters from their own earlier, lesser-known work.
- One of my site visitors has observed that the recurring background line "Hey, what's your name?" is reminiscent of
Depeche Mode's 1981 song "What's Your Name?"—indeed, one of their own very early songs marked by "the sound of those old machines" (as they're described in "Your Early Stuff"). Seeing as how it's a rather gayish track from their Vince Clarke days that Depeche Mode has essentially disavowed in the years since, it's tempting to think that Neil and Chris might be having a bit of fun at DM's expense.
Mixes/Versions
Officially released
- Mixer: Andrew Dawson
- Album version (2:33)
- Instrumental (2:33)
- On the special limited Elysium two-disc CD and vinyl editions
List cross-references
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