Very. A blog about Pet Shop Boys.

Released a month before Pet Shop Boys’ first album Please, “Love Comes Quickly” is a perfectly straightforward pop song with slick production and a few nice couplets, more notable for the excellent sleeve design (the first by the duo’s longtime collaborator Mark Farrow, with input from Chris Lowe) than the track itself, an ethereal paean to the power of love featuring a heavy bassline and a very repetitive Fairlight chord. Recorded the same night as a track that would eventually become “I’m not scared,” “Love comes quickly” was created while the duo was in what Tennant has described as “our beautiful Italian disco mood.”

It’s amusing (at least to me) that my favorite bit, the lyric at 2:37, “I know it sounds ridiculous, but speaking from experience,” was actually written by producer Stephen Hague, who felt there needed to be “a middle bit” holding the song together. That fact, along with the expensive sax solo that can barely be heard in the track (that’s Andy Mackay from Roxy Music, which is quite possibly the most big-budget, 80s thing the duo could have done at this point in their careers) are far more interesting to me than song itself, especially when there’s a sleeve like this to consider:

Tennant’s thoughts about the above design came out in a 1999 interview conducted to promote Nightlife, in which Neil and writer Mirielle Silcott have the following exchange:

M: Speaking of gay… have you ever publicly come out? Did you ever feel like you needed to?

NT: I was always gay in my private life, and also the imagery in our songs, and our image, there was something pretty gay about it all. But in the 1980s, we didn’t say we were gay. We had a big teen following and I’ve always thought it more exciting when the sexuality thing is all mysterious. I mean, do you remember the record “Love Comes Quickly” [”Love Comes Quickly”: Released March, 1986. #11 on U.K. charts.]? The cover image was Chris wearing that Boy cap, and I just thought, “That’s incredibly gay! We’re OUT!”

M: But people just took it as a teen pop record?

NT: Yes, exactly. Anyway, five years ago I did this interview for a magazine in England and it was a new gay magazine. I figured it would seem churlish not to say that I was gay in a new gay magazine. But it wasn’t much of a surprise, was it? I never pretended to be straight. We’ve never done fake girlfriends, or sexy videos with girls [except “Being Boring,” 1990, Bruce Weber director, lots of sexy girls and boys. PSB only cameo in it for 2.5 seconds]¹.

“Love comes quickly” isn’t a bad track by any stretch (even if I grow very tired of the “Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah” sample), but it lacks the intelligence and wit that marks most Pet Shop Boys singles. It’s danceable, to be sure, and it sounds fantastic on a large system, but Tennant’s vocal doesn’t seem mixed quite to my tastes and the lyrics are no great shakes, especially compared to the earlier doses of smart pop the duo had released.

It’s telling that my favorite version of the song is the furthest departed from the original template. “Love comes quickly” was remixed by Blank & Jones in 2003 for their mix album Relax, taking a decent pop song from the 80s and turning it into a fantastic “chill out” track, excising the original beat entirely and using Tennant’s vocal as a centerpiece counterpointed with guitar flourishes and all nestled in a warm synth sound with a lively backing:

Favorite Versions: The Blank & Jones mix, rather obviously, and the extended dance mix from Disco. The latter builds wonderfully, hinting at the song’s various elements before hitting at just the right point. There’s also a live version on the “I get along” single that’s very listenable - it’s a bit “rock,” but that’s what they were doing at the time.

¹A footnote about Silcott’s asides: the “Se a vida é (That’s the way life is)” video from 1996 features attractive people of both genders. Annoyingly, the side comments (in this 8-year-old article, I know) are irritating and frequently just plain wrong. A good, lively interview, spoiled by a writer too in love with their own words.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 8:00 am and is filed under Song Commentary.