Hell

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 2012
Original album - Elysium 2017 reissue bonus disc
Producer - Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - bonus track with the single "Leaving"

The Boys wrote this song during the sessions for Elysium. Neil described it in a 2012 interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel as being about dictators talking to each other in Hell, set to a "Balkan beat." Neil thought it funny but Chris didn't, so the latter's veto ensured that it wouldn't appear on the album. Neil said that it would probably be relegated to a "b-side" (a more or less archaic term these days, but we know what he meant)—and, sure enough, that's precisely what happened.

Chris's reservations notwithstanding, it does have a bouncy, rather comic sound. The chorus (in one of its variations) goes:

Hell, hello, it's Hell in here
Evil is a bore with a big idea
Hell, hello, what's not to fear?
Evil is bore, which makes it Hell in here

These lines shrewdly suggest that much of the awfulness of Hell stems more from its inhabitants than from the environment itself. In other words, maybe Heaven itself would be hellish if such people could also be found there.

In the January 2013 issue of Literally, Neil revealed that this song has other, unused verses, including these lines that he admits are "too rude": "Of Adolf Eichmann there's barely a trace/But Colonel Gaddafi still farts in his face." An admirably tasteful exclusion, that.

Annotations

A number of tyrannical rulers and other evil characters from the less savory side of human history are mentioned in the lyrics. They're listed below in the order in which they appear in the song, with their names cited precisely as they are in the lyrics; for instance, if only their last name is used in the song, then only their last name is listed here:
- Saddam Hussein - Dictator of Iraq 1979–2003
- Pol Pot - Dictator of Kampuchea (Cambodia) 1975–1979
- Mao Tse-Tung (aka Mao Zedong) - Dictator of China 1949–1976
- Idi Amin - Dictator of Uganda 1971–1979
- Bokassa - Dictator and then Emperor of the Central African Republic (renamed the "Central African Empire" during his reign as emperor), 1966–1979
- Josef Stalin - Dictator of the Soviet Union c. 1924–1953
- Lenin - Dictator of the Soviet Union 1917–1924
- Putin - President of Russia 2000–2008 and 2012–present and Prime Minister of Russia 1999–2000 and 2008–2012; the first of only two then-living persons mentioned in the lyrics (and now the only one who is still alive), about whom the aforementioned Stalin and Lenin are described as "ranting and raving and bitching"
- Vlad the Impaler (aka Vlad Țepeș, aka Vlad Dracula) - Prince of Wallachia 1456–1462 (and sporadically at other times as well), on whom the fictional character of Dracula is very loosely based
- The Ceaușescus - Dictator of Romania 1967–1989 and his wife
- Robert Mugabe - First Prime Minister, then President of Zimbabwe 1980–2017; although he was the second of the two then-living persons mentioned in the lyrics, which allude to the need to "make room" for him in Hell, he has since died (2019)
- Caligula - Roman Emperor 37–41 AD
- Adolf Hitler - First Chancellor, then Dictator of Germany 1933–1945
- Mussolini - Dictator of Italy 1922–1943 (and puppet ruler of those portions of Italy still controlled by Germany 1943–1945)
- Napoleon - Emperor of France 1804–1815
- Kim Il-Sung - Dictator of North Korea 1948–1992
- Osama bin Laden - Founder and leader of al-Qaeda c. 1988–2011 and generally regarded as the chief strategist behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
- Heinrich Himmler - The head of the SS in Nazi Germany 1936–1945
- Fred West - British serial killer who committed his crimes 1967–1987
- Ivan the Terrible - Grand Prince of Moscow 1533–1584 and first Tsar of Russia c. 1547–1584
- Giles de Rais - French knight and serial killer (though some historians maintain his innocence) who allegedly committed his crimes c. 1432-1440
"Evil is a bore" - This line seems to describe a concept not unlike that of "the banality of evil," a phrase famously coined by Hannah Arendt in her 1963 study Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Her basic premise was that some of most horrific acts in human history have been and continue to be committed not by exceptional individuals but rather by quite ordinary people who, if it weren't for their evil deeds, would be regarded as thoroughly uninteresting, even dull.
Closely associated with the aforementioned line throughout the song are the repeated words "It's hell in here." One clear implication is that the sheer boredom of being with these inhabitants of hell is one of the primary things that makes it hellish. In other words, it's hell being with them. This is reminiscent of the famous line by the French existentialist writer/philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, whose 1944 play Huis clos (literally "Closed house," but usually translated No Exit) contains the line "L'enfer, c'est les autres" ("Hell is other people"). Despite this, it's easy to miss the disturbing implication that the song's narrator—unless he's regarded as simply disembodied and omniscient, which isn't at all unusual in literary works—is himself in hell along with these infamous characters.
"Hot as wasabi" - Wasabi is a type of Japanese horseradish, most commonly served with sushi and notorious for its extremely hot spiciness. Neil cleverly uses it both to evoke the extreme heat of Hell and to provide a rhyme for the aforementioned Robert Mugabe.
"Caligula spits stale panini at Adolf Hitler and Mussolini" - Panini is a word used in the U.K., U.S., and elsewhere to refer to a type of pressed and toasted sandwich, derived from the plural form of the Italian word panino, which itself refers to a similar sandwhich, its name being the diminutive form of the Italian word for bread, pane—all of which are etymologically linked to a term with a very important role in PSB history, "Paninaro." As for the use of "panini" in this song, Neil once again puts a relatively unusual word to great comic use in forging a rhyme with a dictator's name.

List cross-references

All text on this website aside from direct quotations (such as of lyrics and of other nonoriginal content) is copyright © 2001-2024 by Wayne Studer. All Rights Reserved. All lyrics and images are copyright © their respective dates by their respective owners. Brief quotations and small, low-resolution images are used for identification and critical commentary, thereby constituting Fair Use under U.S. copyright law. Billboard chart data are copyright © their respective dates by Nielsen Business Media, Inc.