The 13 least likely subjects for pop songs that the Pet Shop Boys nevertheless turned into pop songs
At least in my own personal opinion, a baker's dozen listed in chronological order:
- Jazz-loving nonconformists in occupied France distrusted by the Nazis and the Resistance alike ("In the Night")
- Privitization of U.K. national industries by the government of Margaret Thatcher ("Shopping")
- Political circumstances in the Balkans during the 1930s ("Don Juan")
- A Russian composer forced to reevaluate his career following the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union ("My October Symphony")
- A closeted gay man tormented by his all-too-knowing girlfriend ("Can You Forgive Her?")¹
- A British schoolmaster contemplating suicide ("Hey, Headmaster")
- A man's life flashing before his eyes in reverse chronology after picking up a transvestite and getting into a fatal automobile accident ("One Thing Leads to Another")
- Homosexual truckers, dancing (?) at a highway rest stop, no less ("The Truck-Driver and His Mate")
- A bitter but prideful lipsyncing drag queen ("Electricity")²
- Victorian graverobbers ("The Resurrectionist")
- An aged Casanova suffering from impotence ("Casanova in Hell")
- Terrorist suicide bombers who believe their murderous actions will guarantee them a place in heaven ("Fugitive")³
- A dictator who doesn't want to be a dictator anymore but can't figure out how to extricate himself without getting himself killed ("The Dictator Decides")
¹Made into the subject of a U.K. Top Ten hit, no less. How many people in 1993 were paying close attention?
²Mind you, this more than a decade before RuPaul's Drag Race came along.
³Despite considering it from the start, I initially resisted including this song because I felt its timeliness in the wake of the 9/11 attacks made it perhaps "not so unlikely." But the particular perspective that the Pet Shop Boys take, examining the subject from a seemingly sympathetic angle—with the emphasis there on "seemingly" since Neil has been very forthright in asserting that he certainly does not condone such beliefs or actions—makes it indeed a rather unlikely subject.
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