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Tonight Is Forever

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 1986
Original album - Please
Producer - Stephen Hague
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - (none)

Absolutely subversive. It takes the old cliché about "love forever" and turns it completely on its head. Simultaneously a seduction and a threat, the narrator of this song both tempts and warns his prospective lover/victim as he describes how exciting, irresponsible, and tenuous life with him could be: "The money's short and time is tight …. I never have enough. It could be like this forever if we fall in love." The upbeat, danceable environment in which these lyrics are placed cleverly disguises their deeper implications, just as the narrator's carefree lifestyle hides the tremendous potential for self-destruction lurking just beneath the surface.

We don't need any more when we dance
I don't think of the future tonight

Ecstatically romantic, to be sure, but also frightening. And when Neil sings "Open the door, you hold the key," is it a plea to enter into love—or to escape from it? Maybe both. After all, we often find ourselves attracted to self-destructive behavior; if there weren't something terribly appealing about it, no one would succumb. This is the ambiguity that lies at the heart of this remarkable song.

It's hardly surprising that when Tennant and Lowe had Liza Minnelli cover this for her Results album, they slowed it down, added an orchestra, poured on the drama, and made it sound every bit as ominous as it truly is.

Annotations

The Boys had seriously considered releasing "Tonight Is Forever" as the follow-up single to "West End Girls." But then a live TV performance of the song didn't turn out nearly as well as they hoped, so they decided against it.
The opening line "I may be wrong, I may be right" is an inversion of a similar line from the classic 1939 British romantic number "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" by Eric Maschwitz (lyrics) and Manning Sherwin (music), the second verse of which goes:

I may be right, I may be wrong
But I'm perfectly willing to swear
That when you turned and smiled at me
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square

Intentional or not—and it certainly may not be—it makes the start of "Tonight Is Forever" an intriguing "echo" of the earlier song.

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

Pet Shop Boys rendition:

Mixer: Stephen Hague
- Album version (4:31)

Liza Minnelli rendition:

Mixer: Julian Mendelsohn and Pet Shop Boys
- Album Version (5:04)

List cross-references

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