I Will Survive
Writers - Fekaris/Perren
First released - 1995
Original album - DiscoVery - Live in Rio 1994 (2021)
Neil and Chris have often performed Gloria Gaynor's 1978-79 disco classic "I Will Survive" as part of a live medley with "It's a Sin"—most regularly during their 1994 DiscoVery concerts, but at other times as well. The implications of this particular medley are unavoidable: the Pet Shop Boys consider the struggle with sin—or, perhaps more accurately, with the concept of sin and its effects on one's psyche—to be a matter of survival. They assert in no uncertain terms that they will indeed overcome and survive.
The fact that they often performed it with heavy-handed religious overtones (the female singer wearing a nun's habit, a stained-glass window background projection, and/or sampled pipe organ chords worthy of St. Peter's Basilica) leaves little doubt that their problems with "sin" are actually with "the church"—that is, traditional organized religion.
List cross-references
- PSB "cover songs" and who first recorded them
- 3 dance-music classics that the Boys have blended into live versions of their own songs
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