Story of the Song: ‘Being Boring’ by Pet Shop Boys

From The Independent archive: Robert Webb on the synth-poppers most cherished track

Striking the right chord: Neil Tennant, left, and Chris Lowe (Alamy)

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe once revealed that: “If you want to write a classic pop song, use these chords: A flat, B flat, G minor 7th, C minor.” “Being Boring”, the lead single from their 1990 album Behaviour, is the perfect example of this, and the Pet Shop Boys’ most cherished track.

It was also one of the most difficult songs they had written. When a close friend died of Aids in the late Eighties, Tennant recalled a party he had thrown in Newcastle in 1972. The party invitations quoted Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of the novelist F Scott Fitzgerald: “...she refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring”. “It’s three verses, in three different decades,” Tennant said. The first is about that party invitation.

It became an epitaph for Tennant’s dead friend. The second verse reflects on the hedonistic 1970s, when the pair left for London. “The third verse is me, now,” said Tennant in 1990. The Boys completed the song in the studio. That’s when Lowe, hit on the chord change.

JJ Belle played guitar, Dominic Clarke appeared on plastic tube on the intro and the track was mixed by Harold Faltermeyer. “The vocals are almost hushed,” said Tennant. “I wanted it to sound like it was someone whispering in your ear. It’s hard to sing.”