West End Girls

After reading Joe's entry about The Pet Shop Boys at Radio City Music Hall, I was taken back to when I first heard West End Girls and felt, for the first time, that someone got it, got me. This song spoke to me on a different level than any other song I had ever heard. I knew this was about being gay. I just knew it. And it made me feel, somehow, safe. When Neil Tennant sings: "You've got a heart of glass or a heart of stone Just you wait 'til I get you home..." I knew this was about sex and picking up some cute boy even though I had yet to do any of that (in 1986, I just a Sophomore highschool). Without sounding the cliche alarm, this song really made me feel I wasn't alone. I usually scoff at people when they say a song really "spoke to me", but I have to remember I have a song that spoke to me too. Those lyrics told me that there was a place where those feelings I was so good at pushing away and ignoring, those feelings I was afraid to admit to having, that there was a place where there are other's with the same feelings. If you read the lyrics, the song is not very hopeful, it confirmed my fears, and yet, it opened a window and gave me a feeling of not being alone. A friend wrote a song once that has this lyric, "music doesn't' change a goddamn thing". Well, that maybe true for some, but West End Girls changed me in a small and important way. It was a glimmer of something more.

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Sometimes you're better off dead
There's gun in your hand and 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 madman 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, 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?
And 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, a dead end world
The East End boys and West End girls
West End girls
West End girls

(How much do you need?)

In a West End town, a dead end world
The East End boys and West End girls
Oooh West End town, a dead end world
East End boys, West End Girls
West End girls

You've got a heart of glass or a heart of stone
Just you wait 'til I get you home
We've got no future, we've got no past
Here today, built to last
In every city, in 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
A West End town, a dead end world
East End Boys, West End girls
West End girls

West End girls

West End girls
(How far have you been?)

Girls
East End boys
And West End girls
And West End girls
(... forever)
And West End girls
(How far have you been?)

East End boys
The West End girls
The West End boys
And West End girls

The West End girls
The West End boys
The West End girls