I Can't Say Goodnight
Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 1989
Original album - Results (Liza Minnelli)
Producer - Julian Mendelsohn, Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - (none)
Another of the Boys' incredibly brazen love/lust songs. It also happens to be one of the earliest songs that Chris and Neil wrote together, from way back in 1982, but not seeing the light of day until 1989 and Results.
The narrator feels rather ambivalent about her love for the person she has just spent the evening with ("I don't know whether I'll love you much longer"), but she doesn't want to be alone tonight, so she's finding it difficult to say goodnight—that is, to leave. She recognizes that her desire may be inspired largely by the fact that it's "a hot summer's night."
People in PSB songs can be so disarmingly honest, it makes you wonder whether:
- Neil and/or people he knows really do talk and act like this,
- Neil simply wishes people talked and acted like this,
- Neil doesn't wish such a thing but finds it interesting to speculate on what life would be like if people did talk and act like this, or
- Neil simply puts into words what he believes people are truly thinking.
As with several other tracks on Results, Chris is credited with Fairlight programming, while Neil earns a credit as keyboardist.
List cross-references
- This song doesn't appear in any of my lists.
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