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Happiness Is an Option

Writers - Tennant/Lowe/Clinton/Rachmaninov
First released - 1999
Original album - Nightlife
Producer - Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - (none)

The Nightlife album's fourth track was the last one recorded, reportedly in an effort to mold a single specifically for the U.S. market. An amalgam of music from sources about as divergent as one can imagine—a George Clinton sample combined with a background melody based on a fragment from Sergei Rachmaninov's 1915 composition Vocalise—this number features Neil "rapping" (if you can call it that) in an unusual manner, more conversational than rap's usual declamatory style. The message is clearly optimistic and perhaps even a little didactic, insisting that people can choose for themselves whether to be happy in the face of the troubles life has to offer. (Note the similarity in this respect to "Miserablism.")

In his 2018 book One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem, Neil describes this song as "A simple message about one's ability to create the circumstances in which personal happiness will thrive." He goes on to note that, to this end, he employed "a stream-of-consciousness monologue of autobiographical references: a bad acid trip I had in the early seventies; falling in love; self-hate; war looming in Iraq."

Interestingly, Neil borrowed the line "I don't think I suit my face" from a diary entry by one of Brian Eno's daughters. And listen closely near the end and you can hear the only audible occurrence of Chris's undistorted voice on the album as he repeats the title phrase.

Annotations

As alluded to above, the music playing behind the spoken verses is borrowed from Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov's 1915 work Vocalise. This track also contains, in the words of the album's liner notes, "a recreated sample from the George Clinton Mixman Soundisc MIXSD-001." Hence both Rachmaninov and Clinton receive co-compositional credits on the song.
"My body a prison" – This fairly familiar concept appears to have originated—or at least was first expressed in writing—with Plato, who in his Dialogues quotes Socrates as saying, "The body is the prison of the soul."
"Like a law repealing itself" – This unusual turn of phrase appears to be drawn from theological sources, such as this appearance in the book A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Anterior to the Division of the East and West published by Oxford University in 1844: "…and this more than any thing was the sign of a glorious victory, to the point to the law repealing itself…" (p. 560, my emphasis), which is quoted (in translation) from a homily by Saint John Chrysostom, an archbishop of Constantinople in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, on the subject of Jesus permitting his disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath, an act prohibited by a strict interpretation of Jewish law. In other words, Jesus, as the fulfillment of the law, effectively repeals the law. Neil, thanks to his Catholic upbringing, is likely to have encountered this phrase during his childhood education and/or his extensive personal reading, although his meaning in the context of the song is undoubtedly quite different from that of Saint John Chrysostom.
"Like the Russians wondering why we're born under a blue sky but die in a dark forest" – Neil has reportedly asserted that this is indeed an old Russian saying. But a Russian email correspondent—apparently a teacher with a background in linguistics—has disputed this, saying that he's never heard of any such aphorism. Somebody must be mistaken, but I'll take no stand on who it might be.
"This is neither old nor new" – The English translation of the title of a 1959 poem by the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966).
"Everyone singing, 'War, what is it good for?'" – A clear reference to and quotation from Edwin Starr's 1969 hit single "War," written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. Starr's version was clearly an anti-Vietnam War protest song. A 1985 live remake by Bruce Springsteen was released as a single the following year and again became a hit.

List cross-references

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