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The Sodom and Gomorrah Show

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 2006
Original album - Fundamental
Producer - Trevor Horn
Subsequent albums - Concrete, Inner Sanctum
Other releases - (none)

Life is the ultimate reality show.

Sodom and Gomorrah are, of course, the names of two biblical "cities on the plain" destroyed by the wrath of God for their wickedness—the precise nature of that wickedness being the subject of much social and theological debate in recent years. The more historical interpretation, now generally believed only by right-wing types, is that it was the cities' sexual license—especially homosexual license—that incurred God's anger. More recent interpretations, adopted by modern liberal Christians, hold that the "sins of Sodom" were actually more akin to inhospitality and cruelty.

The track opens with a spoken introduction that would do any TV show proud: "Sun! Sex! Sin! Divine intervention! Death and destruction! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Sodom and Gomorrah Show!" It then launches into a highly elaborate production wrapped around a narrative in which a somewhat innocent, naive narrator—"a stranger to champagne"—is lured into what at first appears to him to be utter depravity. But it proves a liberating experience that also teaches him "the meaning of the show," suggesting also the meaning of life itself:

You've got to love to learn to live
Where angels fear to tread

In other words, you have to be brave and take chances if you're to get the most out of life. A cloistered life of innocence is hardly life at all. It's in the fullness of life that one finds the meaning of life—which is, in the words of the song, a "once-in-a-lifetime production."

Neil told interviewer Jacqui Swift of the online Sun that when he wrote the lyrics he was "thinking about 24-hour news channels" because of the way they present the world—in particular, its horrors ("death and destruction")—as entertainment. Another source of inspiration is the French author Marcel Proust (1871-1922), the fourth volume of whose great novel À la recherche du temps perdu is titled Sodome et Gomorrhe (often translated as Cities of the Plain). A major theme of Proust's work is the way in which distractions, often of a technological nature, all too often serve to alienate people from themselves and each other. So is "The Sodom and Gomorrah Show" a distraction from reality or reality itself? Perhaps both. That is, television news indeed presents reality—or at least one version of it—but in such a way as often to make it somewhat unreal to us.

Neil has also acknowledged that this song could very easily be interpreted as a metaphor for "coming out," but he points out that it has much broader implications. People of any sexual orientation can try to shield themselves from the world or expose themselves to its "sun, sex, sin, divine intervention, death, and destruction." It would be extremely unfortunate if listeners were to zero in on the "Sodom" reference and think that this is purely a "gay" song.

Incidentally, Chris and Neil wanted to release this as the first single from the album—an idea that their record company vetoed immediately and absolutely. It was felt that radio and television would refuse to air a song with "Sodom" in the title. The Boys scoff at this, noting that much more "offensive" words and concepts are broadcast all the time. And, besides, if the song were banned, might not that have boosted sales? After all, the history of pop music (particularly in the U.K.) is replete with examples of songs that became huge hits despite such bans—and in some cases largely because of them.

Annotations

Neil noted in One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem that this song easily lends itself to multiple interpretations, such as describing "a quiet, bookish man… faced with the reality of the modern media," a "repressed man who is taken to a gay club for the first time," or even, metaphorically, America itself.
To reiterate, Sodom and Gomorrah are two biblical cities destroyed cataclysmically (with "brimstone and fire") by God for their great wickedness, as described in the book of Genesis, Chapter 19, v. 1-29.
"I never dared to venture out to cities of the plain" – Sodom and Gomorrah are described in the Bible as among "the cities of the plain" (Genesis 19:29)—the specific plain referred to being that of Jordan. Neil is probably also drawing upon French author Marcel Proust (1971-1922), the fourth volume (1921) of whose great work À la recherche du temps perdu (variously translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past and In Search of Lost Time) is titled Sodome et Gomorrhe (translated either as Sodom and Gomorrah or as Cities of the Plain). Clearly this line of the song's lyric serves as a poetic means of describing the narrator's relative innocence.
"Took it with a pinch of salt" – Considering the Boys' well-documented fondness for word-play in their songs, the lines about how the narrator had "heard about their way of life" in Sodom and Gomorrah but "took it with a pinch of salt" may be a playful allusion to the denouement of the biblical tale, in which the wife of the story's hero, Lot, is turned into a pillar of salt for glancing back at the unfolding destruction of the cities. If nothing else, it's certainly an effective way to get extra mileage out of a familiar cliché. To those unfamiliar with that common expression in English, to take something "with a pinch of salt" is to doubt its veracity, or at least not to take it very seriously. It stems from the age-old usage of salt to improve the taste of food that would otherwise be unpalatable.
"It's got everything you need for your complete entertainment and instruction" - This line alludes to a common thread of aesthetic philosophy dating back to the ancient Greeks: that the two purposes of art are to entertain and to instruct. As the ancient Roman poet Horace wrote in Ars Poetica, art should be both "dulce et utile": sweet and useful.
"Where angels fear to tread" – Also used in the earlier PSB song "Discoteca," this familiar metaphorical phrase originated with the eighteenth-century British poet Alexander Pope.
The demo version of the song contains a sample of Eminem saying "Pet Shop Boys," lifted from his obscure, officially unreleased track "Canibitch," in which he charmingly imagines running our musical heroes down in a car.

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

Mixer: Tim Weidner, Robert Orton, Pet Shop Boys, and Trevor Horn
- Album version (5:24)
Mixer: Pet Shop Boys
- Demo version (5:02)
  - Available on U.K. iTunes in 2006 with the original release of Fundamental
  - Readily distinguishable from the "Original Demo" released in 2017 (see just below) in that it has, near the beginning, a high-pitched voice squealing, "Hello everybody, welcome to the Sodom and Gomorrah Show!" which is missing from the latter release
- Original Demo (5:02)
  - Available on the "Further Listening" bonus disc accompanying the 2017 Fundamental reissue
Mixer: Trentemøller
- Sodom (7:26)
  - Available on the Fundamentalism bonus disc accompanying the limited edition of Fundamental
Mixer: Dettinger
- Gomorrah (5:39)
  - Available on the Fundamentalism bonus disc accompanying the limited edition of Fundamental
Mixer: Tim Weidner
- Live Concrete rendition (5:32)
Mixer: [unknown at this time]
- Unreleased single mix (4:15)
  - Available for listening as an "exclusive track" on the official PSB website
Mixer: Stuart Price
- Inner Sanctum CD live version in medley with "Vocal" (8:56)

Official but unreleased

Mixer: Tim Weidner
- Instrumental version (5:24)

List cross-references

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