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New London Boy

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 2024
Original album - Nonetheless
Producer - James Ford
Subsequent albums - none
Other releases - double-A single with "All the Young Dudes"

According to interviewer Laura Snapes of The Guardian, this song outlines Neil's move to London in the early 1970s. Neil then elaborated, speaking of his past in the same present tense in which the lyrics are apparently written: "I get a flat with friends, we’re all dressing up, you're wondering about your sexuality," adding that it's "what happens between verses two and three of 'Being Boring.'” Snapes goes on to describe the song as "defiant and dreaming, sparked by glam and flashing forward, in a classic Tennant rap breakdown, to the New York dance records that would bring [Tennant] and Lowe together." Neil again chimed in: "It's done in the style of an early '80s Grandmaster Flash rap… which is the rap style that comes naturally to me."

Opening with the spoken words "I remember wondering…," Neil sets out on his youthful recollection of a time when one of his primary goals was to find himself: "Who am I? And what will I turn out to be?" A good deal of that personal search involves personal re-creation. As Neil affirms,

I have to get out of here
And live my invented life

Offhandedly he admits "already that's pretty queer." Indeed, self-invention is often a major part of "coming out" as one shakes off many of the burdens and expectations of a traditional heterosexual upbringing in order to accept oneself as gay.

In London, young Neil gravitates toward a new community that he refers to as his "glam rock brothers," among them "screamers who dress for excess." He has cited David Bowie (name-dropped in the song along with Roxy Music, both of them icons of the ’seventies glam scene) as a major influence not only on his youthful persona but also on this song itself, specifically singling out Bowie's 1966 song "The London Boys" and his 1993 track "The Buddha of Suburbia" as influences. But you can also hear echoes of other Bowie songs, such as "Rebel Rebel" and "Hallo, Spaceboy," in such lines as "Are they girls or boys? Is everyone gay?" Meanwhile, Neil has asserted that "Am I just kidding myself I'll go all the way?" is a double-entendre referring to both his desire for success as well as his emerging sexuality as a young gay man—although, as he pointed out to the BBC's Mark Savage, "In those days I had a girlfriend, so it's about bisexuality a bit as well." (Well, that's rather Bowiesque, too, isn't it?)

Neil's mid-song rap not only provides details about this youthful period in London but also closely resembles (probably quite intentionally) his fame-inducing rap in "West End Girls," right down having to the same rhythm—greatly influenced, as was WEG, by the pioneering rap classic "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

Full of both excitement and trepidation (as previously mentioned in "Being Boring"), young Neil tries to assure himself:

Don't be afraid
If it feels bizarre
This is your time
You are the star
Everyone's watching
Grab your chance

When Neil sings, "I'll aim for the stars and learn how to swim with the sharks," only he can say whether he's voicing his actual youthful awareness or expressing with the wisdom of hindsight a later realization about that period of his life. It's not as surprising as some might think, however, when he says that he'll "play an electric guitar," appropriately backed by the sound of that instrument. Neil, after all, is a guitarist, and if his youthful self took Bowie and glam rock as touchstones, then the electric guitar would certainly have been the instrument of choice.

There's no doubt that "New London Boy" is one of the most personal lyrics—or at least among the most obviously personal lyrics—that Neil has ever written. In something of a surprise move, the Boys announced in October 2024 that the following month it would become the fifth (!) single from Nonetheless as part of a double-A release with "All the Young Dudes," a natural pairing considering the "Bowie connection." Released on two CDs, the packaging of one features a photo of a young Neil while the other displays a young Chris, when they were both "new London boys" and "young dudes."

Annotations

The title of this song invites comparisons to "New York City Boy." But, aside from the general concept of a young man "finding himself" in the big city, the two songs seem to have little to do with each other.
screamers – Long a common term of disparagement used to refer to flamboyant, "effeminate" gay men (as in a "screaming queen"), its usage in this song appears to be an example of "reclaiming" such words in order to defuse them, in much the same way that much of the LGBTQ community has now embraced the term "queer."
"Skinheads will mock you, call you a fag / Last laugh is yours, there's a brick in your bag" – Neil has said that these lines were inspired by someone he actually knew back in the days described in this song, a drag queen who carried a pocketbook with a brick in it, which s/he could wield quite effectively as a weapon of self-defense.
"Everyone's dancing to Roxy and Bowie" – The British band Roxy Music, formed in 1970 and led by singer-songwriter Bryan Ferry, became major figures on the more "sophisticated" end of the glam rock spectrum after the success of their eponymous first album in 1972. David Bowie needs no further introduction.
People want Deco and Hollywood stars" – The Art Deco movement, the peak of which ocurrred in the 1920s, underwent a revival of interest—a type of nostalgia among people too young to have lived through its heyday—in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As described in Wikipedia, "Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress," traits that would lend it tremendous appeal to many glam-rockers. Of course, stars of "old Hollywood" even more obviously represent glamour and were therefore also frequent glam icons.
"Plato and Marx" – An interesting juxtaposition of historical/philosophical figures meant to represent in shorthand form Neil's collegiate studies. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato (c. 427-348 BC) is a foundational philosopher of immeasurable influence in western culture. The German economic philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883), best known for The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, laid the foundations for revolutionary socialism which, in its more extreme forms, came to be known as "communism."
The Boy Harsher remix features a guest female vocalist—almost certainly Jae Matthews, the singing half of Boy Harsher. Since Neil often adds his vocals to PSB remixes of other artists' tracks, this seems like a bit of turnabout fairplay, and our musical heroes clearly don't mind one bit.

Mixes/versions

Officially released

Mixers: James Ford, Jas Shaw
- Album version (4:53)
- Radio edit/single version (3:48)
Mixers: Boy Harsher
- Boy Harsher Remix (4:03)

List cross-references

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