Most recent updates: February 26, 2025
What This Website Is All About
This website has no "official" connection to the Pet Shop Boys. It merely presents my own personal commentary—often including attempted explanations and interpretations—on the songs of my favorite contemporary pop band. Of course, this commentary has often been influenced by what the Pet Shop Boys themselves, Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant, have said about their music and by what others have previously written. Nevertheless, many of the observations I make here are original with me.
By no means am I suggesting that these are the "only" or "correct" interpretations. In fact, it's typical of great art, even great pop art, to lend itself to multiple interpretations. It's part of what makes it great. And I do consider the Pet Shop Boys to be the creators of great pop art. So you can take or leave my interpretations as you wish. If you disagree, please don't take offense. Rather, enjoy the fact that we're both fans of music rich enough to invite different interpretations.
Despite my best efforts, I have no doubt that I'm guilty of at least some factual errors. I recognize this fact and apologize in advance for any that may have slipped past me. I'll certainly correct any errors that come to my attention.
This website will be most attractive and legible when viewed on a full screen at a resolution of at least 1024 x 768 pixels. But resolution much higher than that may result in the text being too small for your reading comfort; if you find that to be the case, you may wish to use your browser's zoom-in capabilities. In addition, this site makes extensive use of javascript; if your browser program isn't configured to use javascript or activescript, some features will not work properly.
This site was originally posted on March 16, 2001, and was most recently revised on February 26, 2025.
Honored
by Yahoo! as a "Pick of the Week" (April 9, 2001)
and a "2001 Pick of the Year" (December
31, 2001)
Wayne Studer is the author of Rock on the Wild Side (1994: Leyland Publications).
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A note on attribution:
I don't mind when other writers, either online or elsewhere, use the ideas and information I offer here. That's one of the reason this website exists. Ideally they will cite me as the source of that information or otherwise attribute it to me. That's wonderful, and I greatly appreciate it. If they don't, however, that's unfortunate but forgivable. After all, people don't own ideas and information.
What does annoy me tremendously is when other writers use my writing more or less verbatim—often my exact wording, though sometimes with only very minor adjustments—thereby essentially quoting me, but without crediting me as the original writer. People do own the specific ways in which they express their ideas and information. If you're going to quote me, please credit me. It's the right, moral and, in fact, legal thing to do.
A note about this website being listed as "Not secure" in the URL/address bar of certain web-browsing programs:
I've decided against investing the additional time, effort, and (especially) money—an average of about $300 per year—that it would require for me to register, set up, and maintain a "secure" site
- require registration for use—in other words, a username and password;
- collect personal, confidential information; and/or
- take online payments via credit cards, PayPal, bank accounts, and the like.
I don't do any of those things. So my site really doesn't need to be "secure" in this way, particularly considering the costs involved. I hope this doesn't dissuade you from visiting.
All text on this website aside from direct quotations (such as of lyrics and of other nonoriginal content) is copyright © 2001-2025 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. If, however, the owners of any copyrighted items object to their use on this site, I will immediately remove the pertinent items upon request and verification. Billboard chart data are copyright © their respective dates by Billboard Media, LLC.