Radiophonic
Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 1999
Original album - Nightlife
Producer - Pet Shop Boys, Rollo
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - (none)
Stylistically and even lyrically one of the most interesting tracks on Nightlife, one that some critics have cited as demonstrating that Neil and Chris retain a musically adventurous streak. Yet the Boys themselves have professed a somewhat "retro" source of inspiration: they "wanted to make an Eighties-sounding song in the vein of Patrick Cowley," the pioneering San Francisco-based producer of synth-heavy disco music who became an early casualty of AIDS in 1982.
Very much in a hi-energy mode, "Radiophonic" sounds almost like one of Chris's instrumental workouts to which Neil has molded lyrics. Those lyrics focus on an extended metaphor in which Neil compares the feeling of falling in love—and, as he told an interviewer for Manchester City Life, of "lying in bed with a hangover"—with loud, driving, pounding dance music ("like a dub sub-sonic beat-box booming bass under the bed") that permeates your brain and body, staying with you, even remaining a part of you long after you've left a dance club. Quite ingenious.
Incidentally, the word "radiophonic" wasn't coined by the Boys. Rather, it dates all the way back to the 1950s when BBC radio producers began experimenting with the musical potential of electronic sound manipulation. They initially described their experiments as "electrophonics," but found that that term already had a totally unrelated medical usage. So they coined the term "radiophonics" to describe their own work. The "Radiophonic Workshop," as it was called, became best known for having originated the Doctor Who theme music. And Neil has admitted to having been a major Doctor Who fan as a child.
As one of my site visitors has pointed out to me, the Radiophonic Workshop often produced music that most listeners at the time found extremely strange and disconcerting. It's likely that this is the metaphor that Neil is evoking in this song: that love can produce just such a sense of oddness and disconcertedness in those whom it strikes, particularly in its early stages.
Annotations
- As noted above, the term "radiophonic" refers to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, established in 1958 to produce sound effects and special music specifically for radio (and later television). It lasted until 1998, when the BBC finally shut it down. It's perhaps best-known for having produced the now-legendary theme music for the long-running British TV series Doctor Who, composed by Ron Grainer and arranged by
Delia Derbyshire. The workshop also created numerous other sound-effects for the show, such as the unmistakable sound of the TARDIS materializing and dematerializing. As for the PSB lyrics, the song comes right out and describes the sensations the narrator is experiencing as being "like a radiophonic workshop orchestrating all my stupid fears" [my emphasis].
- The Pet Shop Boys' demo version of this song (released as a bonus track with the 2017 reissue of the album) features even more prominent "Doctor Who-derived" sounds and effects in its instrumentation. It also has some different lyrics, particularly in the second verse. And it includes sampled vocals from the 1979 Dynasty hit "I Don't Want to Be a Freak (But I Can't Help Myself)," used repeatedly throughout the demo.
Mixes/Versions
Officially released
PSB renditions
- Mixer: Rollo
-
Nightlife album version (3:31)
- Mixer: Pete Gleadall and Pet Shop Boys
- Demo (5:15)
- On one of the "Further Listening" bonus discs accompanying the 2017 Nightlife reissue
List cross-references
- Other songs in which Chris's voice can be heard
- PSB/Doctor Who connections
- The key signatures of selected PSB songs
- PSB songs with "extra lyrics"
- What it's about: Neil's succinct statements on what a song is "about"
- PSB tracks that contain samples of other artists' music
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