Ranging from historical and political manifestos through gay anthems to very intimate, personal confessions, all of Neil Tennant’s lyrics can be described using no other word than “brilliant.” (What’s surprising, it was Tennant who once said “lyrics are important, but they shouldn’t stand in the way.”)
It is hard to find a song by Pet Shop Boys whose lyrics leave listener cold. They’re always touching, accurate, intelligent, timeless and thought-provoking. Even 1986’s Paninaro, which at the first listen seems just a loose collection of spoken words, turns out to be thorough observation of the most approved and most deprecated values of modern times.
And Being boring is no exception. In fact, the whole Behaviour album is regarded one of the highest points in Tennant’s writing history. You can practically pick any pair of verses from the song and turn it into a stand-alone quote. And on the whole it becomes a thoughtful reflection of youth and maturity, plans and outcomes, achievements and losses, triumphs and failures.
I came from Newcastle in the North of England. We used to have lots of parties where everyone got dressed up. And on one party invitation was the quote “she was never bored because she was never boring.” The song is about growing up—the ideals that you have when you’re young and how they turn out.
The idea for the song came when Neil read in a paper about Pet Shop Boys “being boring.” That reminded him of a party invitation back from his youth, which used the Zelda Fitzgerald’s quote from 1922:
[She] bobbed her hair, put on her choicest pair of earrings and a great deal of audacity and rouge and went into battle. She flirted because it was fun to flirt... she covered her face with powder and paint because she didn’t need it and she refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring. She was conscious that the things she did were the things she had always wanted to do.
and brought a lot of memories—of growing up, confronting dreams with reality, making choices... All affected by the sad fact that Neil’s old-time friend from Newcastle wasn’s so fortunate to see where his dreams would lead him, having just died from AIDS.
Neil tried to convey all this in Being boring, and in result, it became his first (but definitely not last) autobiographical song.
I came across a cache of old photos
and invitations to teenage parties.
“Dress in white,” one said with quotations
from someone’s wife, a famous writer
in the nineteen-twenties.
When you’re young you find inspiration
in anyone who’s ever gone
and opened up a closing door.
She said we were never feeling bored.
‘Cause we were never being boring,
we had too much time to find for ourselves.
And we were never being boring,
we dressed up and fought, then thought “make amends.”
And we were never holding back, or worried that
time would come to an end.
When I went, I left from the station
with a haversack and some trepidation.
Someone said “If you’re not careful,
you’ll have nothing left and nothing to care for
in the nineteen-seventies.”
But I sat back, and looking forward,
my shoes were high, and I had scored.
I’d bolted through a closing door,
and I would never find myself feeling bored.
‘Cause we were never being boring,
we had too much time to find for ourselves.
And we were never being boring,
we dressed up and fought, then thought “make amends.”
And we were never holding back, or worried that
time would come to an end.
We were always hoping that, looking back
you could always rely on a friend.
Now I sit with different faces
in rented rooms and foreign places.
All the people I was kissing,
some are here and some are missing
in the nineteen-nineties.
I never dreamt that I would get to be
the creature that I always meant to be.
But I thought, in spite of dreams,
you’d be sitting somewhere here with me.
‘Cause we were never being boring,
we had too much time to find for ourselves.
And we were never being boring,
we dressed up and fought, then thought “make amends.”
And we were never holding back, or worried that
time would come to an end.
We were always hoping that, looking back
you could always rely on a friend.
‘Cause we were never being boring,
we had too much time to find for ourselves.
And we were never being boring,
we dressed up and fought, then thought “make amends.”
And we were never being boring,
we were never being bored,
‘cause we were never being boring,
we were never being bored.
p. 142
Information about Zelda Fitzgerald.
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