Tim Woods
The people got it wrong. Of course they did, because it was a stupid idea to begin with. Asking the great British public for their opinion is fine when it comes to electing governments or deciding whether to stay in the EU. But it’s not appropriate for the truly important things in life. Like determining which, from the extensive and still-growing list, is the greatest ever Pet Shop Boys song.
I had my doubts as soon as I heard that Radio 2 was running a poll. Doubts, and no little sympathy, because it is an exceptionally hard task. The bombast and brilliance of It’s A Sin (No2 in the poll) means it has to be in the mix, but it’s a little too obvious for the top spot. Always On My Mind (No3) is a stroke of musical genius, achieving what few cover versions even attempt and turning a song on its head without losing the original magic. Then there’s Rent, Suburbia, Domino Dancing, Heart…
You can see the problem. It’s hard work even fixing down a top five, let alone a definitive No1. But while I may struggle to decide on their greatest song, I do know it’s not West End Girls, which topped the listeners’ chart. Unarguably groundbreaking at the time, now it sounds a little too plodding and has, if we’re being picky, an unremarkable half-tune which only turns up for the chorus. Harsh? Possibly, but decisions have to be made and the standards in this particular competition are incredibly high.
Lurking at No18 in the Radio 2 countdown was one of the contenders for top spot in my ranking. King’s Cross, one of their most intense and captivating tracks, closes 1987’s Actually, the album released at the height of their self-proclaimed ‘imperial phase’, that brief window in a career when an artist attracts both critical acclaim and commercial rewards.
The London described in the song would be almost unrecognisable to anyone in King’s Cross today, where Google and the Guardian compete to see which behemoth can front a building with the most glass. And, for the generation that followed mine, the station is better known as the place from where the Hogwarts Express departs, its carriages crammed full of overexcited little witches and wizards. Which is, you’ll admit, a stark contrast to being renowned as the most reliable corner of the capital for sourcing heroin and prostitutes.
Neil Tennant’s downcast lyric captures the station’s neighbourhood as it was back then, where violence and misery were commonplace:
Linger by the flyposter, for a fight
It’s the same story every night
I’ve been hurt and we’ve been had
You leave home, and you don’t go back
Murder walking round the block
Ending up in King’s Cross
Tennant’s words have the perfect accompaniment in the sombre, minimal music of his bandmate Chris Lowe. Together, they manage to make one of London’s historically darker corners come alive in song. It’s a trick mastered by only the very finest songwriting storytellers, such as Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, where a song doesn’t just leave you picturing the place, but smelling it, hearing it, feeling it.
Many have theorised about its meaning: whether the ‘dead and wounded on either side’ is a reference to the Aids crisis (which formed the central thread of Being Boring, a song released four years later). Neil Tennant has stated that it was about Thatcherism, which would mean that the ‘smack of firm government’ was delivered by everyone’s favourite milk snatcher.
There’s even the suggestion that it simply captures a weekend with friends in the big city; the vague recollection of the chorus – ‘Someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday’ – gives this concept legs, and acts as a reminder of how precarious social arrangements could be in the days before mobiles were ubiquitous.
King’s Cross may now be gentrified, but the souls who inhabit the song still feel very real, nearly 40 years on. They are those other citizens of the ‘dead end world’ that still is England’s capital – the ones whom life has kicked into the gutter. They appear again in The Theatre, an album track from Very, released six years later. Here, the lyric is written from their accusing perspective, those ‘boys and girls come to roost from Northern parts and Scottish towns’, and the words are directed towards those East End Boys and West End Girls who are simply looking for a good time:
While you pretend not to notice
All the years we’ve been here
We’re the bums you step over
As you leave the theatre
With both tracks, I missed Tennant’s social commentary the first time around. Indeed, after pilfering my older sister’s cassette version of Actually, my initial review of King’s Cross was that it was a bit of a comedown after the stonking thrills of Heart, but I still liked it. Only over the passing decades has its muted brilliance – the perfect mix of lyrical interest, a great tune and a generous dollop of melancholy – become more apparent.
And while I’m not yet ready to award it first place, it is firmly established in my top five Pet Shop Boys songs, where it sits alongside It’s A Sin, Heart, Being Boring and Domino Dancing. And Rent. Oh, and Left To My Own Devices. And In The Night, Jealousy, Go West, I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing, So Hard, One More Chance...
Tim Woods is the author of Love In The Time Of Britpop and Twisted Mountains