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Vampires

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 1999
Original album - Nightlife
Producer - Pet Shop Boys, Craig Armstrong
Subsequent albums - Closer to Heaven (performed by the original cast)
Other releases - (none)

Neil has reportedly stated in an interview that this song's lyrics were partly inspired by seeing a friend doing ketamine in a club. (Ketamine is a potentially dangerous anaesthetic, used in both human and veterinary medicine, that clubbers have been known to use because of the dreamy "out-of-body" high it can induce.) Stylistically a bit of a shuffle, the lyrics seem straightforward enough: the narrator and the person(s) to whom he's speaking are metaphorical "vampires," presumably because they live their lives primarily at night (remember, the album is titled Nightlife). "I'm a vampire, you're a vampire, too." Neil has in fact confirmed this interpretation, saying that it's about "people who just live for the night."

But, appropriately enough, there's an even darker edge. What if they're "vampires" also in the sense that they derive their sustenance from others—"sucking their blood," so to speak? If so, the narrator recognizes this fact and, though perhaps with a twinge of regret, embraces it: "It's a reflex, like fear or sex." In other words, it's just the way he is, and there's nothing he can do about it.

Incidentally, the phrase "New Orleans pretty" is probably inspired by Anne Rice's vampire novels, starting with Interview with the Vampire, which are largely set in New Orleans. This song eventually would up in the Boys' musical Closer to Heaven, where it received a notably different treatment.

Annotations

Myths, legends, and folktales involving vampires and similar creatures—"undead" beings that feed on the blood of the living—date back to ancient times and are found in cultures around the world. But the predominant modern imagery and lore surrounding vampires stem most specifically from Eastern Europe, where they found their arguably greatest and unarguably most influential expression in the 1897 novel Dracula by Irish author Bram Stoker (1847-1912). The word "vampire" itself is probably Serbian in origin (though close parallels are found in other Eastern European languages as well), having migrated to English in the 1700s through German and perhaps French.
"Night in the city, New Orleans pretty" – An allusion not only to the physical appeal of New Orleans (at least before its 2005 devastation by Hurricane Katrina) but also, given the context of the song, to Anne Rice's 1973 novel Interview with the Vampire, much of which is set in and around New Orleans.
One of my site visitors has offered a somewhat more positive spin on the lyrics of this song, viewing them as an expression of sympathy and support, particularly in the refrain "You're a vampire / I'm a vampire, too." He suggests that it could be, as he puts it, "a narrative of brotherhood among people living difficult lives." I think there's something to be said for that perspective.

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

PSB renditions

Mixer: Mark "Spike" Stent
- Original Nightlife album version (4:43)
Mixer: Pete Gleadall and Pet Shop Boys

Demo version (4:02)
- On one of the "Further Listening" bonus discs accompanying the 2017 reissue of Nightlife

Closer to Heaven cast album rendition

Mixer: Bob Kraushaar
- Closer to Heaven version (4:36)

List cross-references

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