Song Lyric Sunday – West End Girls

This week’s Song Lyric Sunday prompts from Jim Adams were pretty straightforward. North, South, East or West. The one I chose jumped into my mind immediately. “West End Girls” by The Pet Shop Boys. It’s a song from the 80s but it still gets plenty of air play. As I grew up in London this song resonated with me. I hope you enjoy it too.

“West End Girls” is a song by the English pop duo Pet Shop Boys. Written by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, the song was released twice as a single. The song’s lyrics are concerned with class and the pressures of inner-city life which were inspired partly by T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land. It was generally well received by contemporary music critics and has been frequently cited as a highlight in the duo’s career.

The first version of the song was produced by Bobby Orlando and was released on Columbia Records’ Bobcat Records imprint in April 1984, becoming a club hit in the United States and some European countries. After the duo signed with EMI, the song was re-recorded with producer Stephen Hague for their first studio album, Please. In October 1985, the new version was released, reaching number one in the United Kingdom and the United States in 1986.

In 1987, the song won Best Single at the Brit Awards, and Best International Hit at the Ivor Novello Awards. In 2005, 20 years after its release, the song was awarded Song of The Decade between the years 1985 and 1994 by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters. In 2015 the song was voted by the British public as the nation’s 12th favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV. 

The song was performed by Pet Shop Boys at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony.

Information collected from Wiki

Lyrics

Sometimes you're better off dead
There's a gun in your hand it's pointing at your head
You think you're mad too unstable
Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables
In a restaurant in a West end town
Call the police there's a mad man around
Running down underground
To a dive bar in a West end town
 
In a West end town a dead end world
The East end boys and West end girls
In a West end town in a dead end world
The East end boys and West end girls
West end girls
 
Too many shadows whispering voices
Faces on posters too many choices
If when why what how much have you got
Have you got it do you get it
If so how often
Which do you choose
A hard or soft option
(How much do you need)
 
In a West end town a dead end world
The East end boys and West end girls
In a West end town in a dead end world
The East end boys and West end girls
West end girls
West end girls
 
In a West end town a dead end world
The East end boys and West end girls
Ooh a West end town in a dead end world
The East end boys and West end girls
West end girls
 
You got a heart of glass or a heart of stone
Just you wait till I get you home
We've got no future
We've got no past
Here today built to last
In every city and every nation
From Lake Geneva to the Finland station
(How far have you been)
 
In a West end town a dead end world
The East end boys and West end girls
In a West end town in a dead end world
The East end boys and West end girls
West end girls
 
West end girls
West end girls
(How far have you been)
Girls
 
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Neil Tennant / Christopher Lowe
West End Girls lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.