Forever in Love
Writers - Lowe/Tennant
First released - 1993
Original album - Relentless
Producer - Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - Very 2001 reissue Further Listening 1992-1994 bonus disc
Other releases - (none)
Second only to the final track, "One Thing Leads to Another," as Relentless's most verbose song. Though primarily an instrumental, it does have persistent background vocals buried in the mix as well as one entire verse, mostly spoken by Neil. These lyrics concern the way that being in love can make you feel and behave: "Did you ever walk on a stormy night oblivious to the rain?" (What do you know? Singing in the Rain updated to a techno setting!) As Neil has described the song, "It's about falling in love for the first time," although he doesn't believe it's based on anything specific from his own life.
The Boys had originally planned for an earlier version of this track to serve as the b-side for the "Go West" single. This once-rare alternative version, which has more vocals and an additional verse, received extremely limited release on a promo cassette, but it has since appeared on the Further Listening bonus disc with the 2001 reissue of Very. There it's titled simply "Forever" in the lyrics section of the accompanying booklet, but "Forever in Love" in the track list. Since "Forever in Love" is what it's called on Relentless, that's what I'm using as its "official" title—at least as far as this website is concerned.
Annotations
- The "Take it from the top!" exclamation is lifted from the opening of Salt-N-Pepa's 1987 track "My Mic Sounds Nice."
- The recurring female vocal of "I feel it" is (or at least certainly sounds like) a somewhat "manipulated" sample from Moby's 1992 track "Next Is the E (I Feel It)." Some other elements of this recording may be sampled in "Forever in Love" as well.
Mixes/Versions
Officially released
- Mixer: Bob Kraushaar and Pet Shop Boys
- Album version (6:19)
- Available on Relentless
- Original version (5:44)
- Available on the Further Listening bonus disc with the Very reissue
- Album version (6:19)
Official but unreleased
- Mixer: uncertain (but probably Bob Kraushaar and Pet Shop Boys)
- Demo (7:06)
List cross-references
- The key signatures of selected PSB songs
- PSB tracks that contain samples of other artists' music
- PSB songs with "extra lyrics"
- What it's about: Neil's succinct statements on what a song is "about"
- Early titles for Pet Shop Boys songs
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