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Twenty-something

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 2016
Original album - Super
Producer - Stuart Price
Subsequent albums - Smash
Other releases - single (didn't appear on the overall UK singles chart but hit #1 for UK physical sales)

In the promotional interview released at the time Super was first announced to the world, Neil described this song as an "observation" of "how different people are from the way they were 20 or 30 years ago." Noting that it's "a sympathetic song," he says that it concerns how difficult it is nowadays for young adults—the "twenty-somethings" of the title—to find a good job, to get paid well, and to find a place to live in London. As Neil put it in another interview, "It’s about London and Soho specifically, maybe. A decadent city in a time of greed: the bankers and their bonuses." To be sure, this situation is hardly unique to the British capital; for instance, many young people in various U.S. cities find themselves in similarly challenging circumstances, while the wealthy just keep getting wealthier.

Thematically, this song could have sat comfortably alongside "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" from the dawn of their career, or had a place on their subsequent classic Thatcherism-critiquing album Actually. It describes callow young adults, full of themselves after having left the homes of their upbringing (which pretty much describes most young people throughout recorded history), being hardened and corrupted by the pricey, fast-paced, unfeeling, materialistic urban environment they now inhabit. “Sometimes it’s hard,” sings Neil, “day to day, to pay your way,” emphasizing the pecuniary nature of their existence. They’re lonely (“Think you’ll ever meet your match?”—a line that rings with double entendre, “match” suggesting both one’s mate and one’s equal) and vacantly self-deluding (“Make believe that it’s all you need”) as they try to succeed “in a time of greed.” It inspires decidedly mixed emotions: one feels sorry for those who struggle to survive in such circumstances, while at the same time sensing that those who actually do survive may fully deserve the tough, uncaring world that they’ve apparently embraced.

Chris has described the music, with its infectious loping rhythm, as strongly influenced by "reggaeton," a genre of Latin/Caribbean music that blends and incorporates styles native to Jamaica, Trinidad, and Puerto Rico, with additional borrowings from hip-hop and electronica. (But please see an annotation about this matter below.) When the Boys were interviewed by Graham Norton about the album, Norton described a prominent instrumental sound in the song as akin to that of an old hurdy-gurdy, which Chris quickly noted was not a sample but an actual keyboard line played by him. Most interestingly, the song's chord structure is adapted from that of "The Cold Song" from the opera King Arthur by English composer Henry Purcell—the same opera that served as the original source for the recurring "fanfare theme" of the immediately preceding album's "Love Is a Bourgeois Construct."

After having been rumored for several weeks as the second single from Super, its status as such was confirmed with its single release in late June 2016. The song's music video surprisingly focused not on the yuppie-like characters who seem to inhabit the lyrics but instead on a down-and-out Latino family struggling to survive in urban Southern California—a choice probably inspired at least in part by the Latin stylistic origins of the track.

Annotations

Henry Purcell (1659-1695) was an English composer of the Baroque period and style, widely regarded as the greatest English composer prior to the nineteenth century. He composed both sacred and secular music, including operas, overtures, sonatas, and hundreds of songs, hymns, and anthems. As noted above, the chord structure of "The Cold Song" from his 1691 opera King Arthur was adapted by the Pet Shop Boys for this track. It's worth noting that "The Cold Song" itself has been recorded not only by many classical vocalists but also by several pop artists, most prominently Sting and Klaus Nomi.
As noted above, Chris says that the music of "Twenty-something" is influenced by the Latin/Caribbean style known as reggaeton. But one of my Brazilian site visitors maintains—subsequently corroborated by several others—that the song is actually much more closely akin to the Brazilian style called technobrega (sometimes alternately spelled tecno brega, which literally means "cheesy techno"). There's more than one possible explanation for this apparent discrepancy. I suspect the most likely is that the Boys were indeed influenced by reggaeton, but in the process of adapting it for "Twenty-something" they unwittingly transformed it into something that, quite by accident, more closely resembles technobrega. Of course, another possibility is that Chris was simply mistaken in identifying reggaeton as opposed to technobrega as the style of music he had taken as an influence.
Back in the 1980s or '90s, commentators on this song (if they'd had the opportunity) would undoubtedly, even irresistibly have referred to its protagonists as "yuppies" (young urban professionals). Interestingly, after having read at least a dozen different reviews of Super, I have yet to see anyone refer to "yuppies" in reference to this song. The term appears to have fallen out of vogue these days—which I can't say I mind one bit seeing as how I never much cared for it myself. Then again, maybe that's because a lot of people would have considered me a yuppie (and/or its gay analogue, "guppie") back in the 1980s.
"But you’ll love her for the length of a good movie" – From the very first time I heard this song, this line has always struck me as a rather cynical (if possibly exaggerated) and maybe even a slightly snide means of describing a very short-term romantic or sexual relationship. After all, the length of a movie (good or otherwise) is usually around two hours or so, which would indeed make loving someone only for that long a "quickie." One of my regular site visitors has suggested, however, that it may be a reference to the urban slang term "Netflix and chill," which dates back at least to 2009 and became a popular expression among young people in the twenty-teens to refer euphemistically to going over to someone's home ostensibly to watch a movie but actually in hopes of having casual sex with them. I don't believe this is necessarily the case since the meaning of the line certainly doesn't hinge on that bit of slang, but I won't rule out the possibility.
Could the lines "Take your smart phone / And make your way home / On your own" have been at least partly (maybe even subconsciously) inspired by the real-life circumstances by which Chris, roughly a decade before, had come up with a line ("I'm all alone again—I'm all alone") and part of the melody of "I Made My Excuses and Left"?

With regard to those same lines, one of my site visitors has suggested that it may be in reference to young adults using their smartphones as devices to facilitate sexual hook-ups, rather than meeting in more conventionally "sociable" ways (such as in bars). There may be something to that, although I personally think Neil may be suggesting something far broader. I suspect it's a commentary on how many people—especially younger people, the "twenty-somethings" of the title—seem absolutely devoted to their smartphones, so much so that they can't seem to do without them for a single waking moment. Over dinner, walking on the street, or out with friends—or, heaven forbid, even behind the steering wheel—they have their smartphones out and eyes glued to them. (I've had to dodge them, oblivious to their surroundings, on more than one occasion while out walking.) So, as I said, the "sex angle" may be part of it, but only part of it.
The brief line "And so to bed" is something of a literary cliché that gained familiarity from its repeated use by Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), English public official and member of Parliament who today, however, is best known for having kept from 1660 to 1669 what became one of the most famous diaries in world history. "And so to bed" is often the last thing he would write for any given day's entry.
The Boys wrote several additional verses for this song that they decided against using, including one quoted by Neil in Issue 42 of their fan publication Literally and again (in a very slightly different form, deleting the word "You're" from the last line) his book One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem:

Twenty-something
Meet and greet
Avoiding that
Bubonic creep
A vampire who
Seemed so friendly
Stole your ideas
Still feels envy
Oh, Twenty-something
You're in too deep
One of my site visitors has astutely pointed out that "twenty-something" in this song might refer not only to the age of its protagonists—certainly the most obvious interpretation—but also to the years in which they live: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and so on. I didn't pick up on that. It might not have been an intentional double entendre on the Boys' part but, then again, it doesn't need to have been intentional to be an interesting observation.
Another site visitor has suggested that the line "Find an issue, get ahead" might refer to the street newspaper The Big Issue, which Wikipedia describes as "one of the UK's leading social businesses and exists to offer homeless people, or individuals at risk of homelessness, the opportunity to earn a legitimate income, thereby helping them to reintegrate into mainstream society." I'm personally much more inclined, however, to interpret the "Find an issue" line to refer to the common need for young professionals to find some specific cause or subject matter to glom onto, so to speak, and become expert or at least highly proficient at in order to make themselves more appealing job prospects or otherwise to stand out from the crowd. I suppose it could be a double entendre, possibly referring to both, although even that seems to me a bit of a stretch.

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

Mixer: Stuart Price
- Album version (4:22)
- Radio Edit (3:37)
Mixer: Los Evo Jedis
- The Los Evos Jedis Mix (3:59)
Mixer: Kornél Kovács
- Kornél Kovács Remix (5:30)

Official but unreleased

Mixers: Offer Nissim
- "Godfather Remix" (6:22)

List cross-references

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