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The View from Your Balcony

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 1997
Original album - Bilingual 2001 reissue Further Listening 1995-1997 bonus disc
Producer - Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - Format
Other releases - bonus track with single "Somewhere"

The inspiration for this lovely song—a bonus track on the U.K. "Somewhere" CD single—was, precisely as its title suggests, a view from a balcony. Neil attended a party at the twentieth floor apartment of a friend who lived in Bermondsey in South London. Its balcony offered a marvelous view of the Thames River. Neil observed the irony of how this tower-block apartment, which at one time (specifically, he notes, back at the height of "punk rock") would only have been thought of as the home of someone who had been abused by "the system," nevertheless had a breathtaking panorama that could make it the envy of far wealthier, far more powerful people.

Neil appears to be pointing out that there are many wonderful things in life that cannot be denied people simply because they aren't among the elite—and that, in fact, the elite (such as maybe Neil himself?) sometimes can find themselves envying others in presumably "less fortunate" circumstances.

Annotations

"In a romance of the old school, if you lived in this tower block / You'd be a victim of the system, a subject for punk rock" – Residential high-rise buildings are found in cities all around the modern world. Tower blocks, as they are often referred to in the U.K., were extensively built in British cities during the post-war period as a means of accommodating the large numbers of people who came to urban areas in search of work. In effect, they were a means of cramming more people into less space. Many were built as cheaply as possible. As a result, it didn't take long for them to begin deteriorating, and by the 1960s they were already being viewed as symbols of urban poverty and decay. Hence, as their value and appeal continued to decline, they often became homes to "victims of the system," those who found themselves near the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. The mid- and late 1970s saw the rise of punk rock among disaffected British youth, many of whom came from that socio-economic stratum themselves and whose song lyrics often reflected a cynical worldview born of the frustrated idealism so aptly symbolized by those tower blocks. In referring to "a romance of the old school," however, Neil suggests that this might not truly describe the circumstances in which his friend lives. Perhaps this particular London tower block has been renovated and "gentrified." Nevertheless, the song points out the fundamental irony that the view from such a balcony is so magnificent that, in an earlier age, only a prince might have had access to it.

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