We know surprisingly little about the inner workings of Neil Tennant, singer of Pet Shop Boys. Instantly recognisable, even without one of the band’s designer hats, he nonetheless remains a cypher: political, but not sloganeering; an almost absurdly stiff-upper-lipped, Earl Grey sort of pop star – at least in public.
We all know the hits, and why they’re good: this son of Newcastle is, among other things, a noted chronicler of London life (West End Girls, which takes cues from both Grandmaster Flash and TS Eliot), of the rampant excess of the 1980s (Opportunities) and the complexities of relationships, gay, straight and non-sexual. He’s especially good on the drama in the everyday (Suburbia), and lapsed Catholicism (It’s a Sin).
Anyone hoping for revelatory juice from his book – which comprises an intro, 100 annotated Pet Shop Boys songs, and a brief concluding verse – will come away mildly nonplussed, but not unenriched. Pet Shop Boys’ rise predated the era of Instagrammatic oversharing and his first published volume suggests that the 64-year-old Tennant would like to be held up as less of a celebrity, and more a chronicler of our times who happened to fill arenas.
His throat-clearing introduction rattles off some major life milestones, and you can’t help but wonder if this elegant little compilation – full of observation and lashings of pain, stoically borne, but rich with eye-rolling satire too – is the publisher’s way of softening Tennant up for a memoir. When he mentions the excitement of recording early tracks in New York with producer Bobby Orlando, he notes, tantalisingly, “but that is a story for a different book”.
For now, though, there are the words; some already etched indelibly into the forebrain, some from lesser-known corners of Tennant’s notebooks. One Hundred Lyrics does not function quite at the level of Decoded, Jay-Z’s illuminating 2010 document unpicking a number of his songs, but there are slow reveals. The recurring phrase in Rent – “I love you, you pay my rent” – is supposed to be infuriatingly ambiguous: whether the various characters love their sugar daddies because they pay their rent, or despite the fact that they pay their rent, remains fluid: not even Tennant is sure.
It becomes clear that Christopher Dowell, Tennant’s childhood friend from Newcastle, recurs as a character, most palpably in Being Boring; he died in 1989 from Aids-related illness, and Tennant opens up about how the disease stoked many of his lyrics from the era.
He is a widely read man, revelling in idiomatic turns of phrase. I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing is a portrait of Tennant in love, while the innocuous-sounding Call Me Old-Fashioned skewers an abusive boy-band manager. Character studies abound; a great many lyrics take their cues from literature. But whether or not these are autobiographical smokescreens remains moot.
Tennant’s words hold up exceedingly well on the page, particularly those that deal succinctly with a subject. I Made My Excuses and Left from 2006’s Fundamental album is about the moment Cynthia Lennon walks into a room to find her husband and Yoko Ono “staring into each other’s eyes”. These four brief verses are among his most distilled and jewel-like. “I felt I should apologise for what I hadn’t heard,” writes Tennant-as-Cynthia of the mixture of realisation and chagrin engulfing her.
• One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem by Neil Tennant is published by Faber (£14.99). To order a copy for £13.19 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
