The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
Sometimes you're better off dead
There's a gun in your hand 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 mad man 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?
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
Ooh, West End town, a dead end world
East End boys, West End girls
West End girls
You 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
There's a gun in your hand 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 mad man 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?
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
Ooh, West End town, a dead end world
East End boys, West End girls
West End girls
You 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
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Light Up The Sky
Van Halen
Van Halen
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Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
Look, the PSBs are from London. London famously has an East End and West End. The West End is high-rent, full of theatre, tourist attractions, and businesses. The East End is working-class, the home of cockney and most of London's most famous gangsters. Hence, the famous show "EastEnders."
This song is nothing more than the old tale of lovers (or potential lovers) from different sides of the tracks, inner-city pressure,* and alienation of being young in a modern world.
PSBs themselves used this phrase, and it's funny that Flight of the Conchords' "Inner City Pressure" is a clear homage to "West End Girls."
I agree about "Inner City Pressure" being a hilarious parody of this song. The first time I saw that episode of FoTC, I did a spit-take when they started singing that song. Dead on.
no the Pet Shop Boys are from northern england, Neil Tennant id from Newcastle and i can't remember where Chris Lowe was born.
@JimmyCarlBlack Neil Tennant - North Shields, Northumberland. Chris Lowe - Blackpool, Lancashire.
I think it's about class issues. East End tends to be Cockney, and "lower" class. West End has more money. So maybe it's about the rich girls who go after the poorer and lower class boys. Kind of a UK "Uptown Girl."
if you grew up understanding the east end/ west end conundrum.... trust me, the song is not about drugs or homosexuality, though both are prevelent in the culture. it is about a culture itself and the times growing up there. no future explaining the way it felt to be in the middle of nowhere, no past meaning many did not know their own family history...who's your daddy.....?
a place where you fall asleep to the lull of sirens every night... and when one day... you journey to the other end... you meet the other world. like boy meets girl...and you dream of nothing but getting out....
CharmingMan is right.
Quote from Neil Tennant:
"We arrived in the studio and Bobby O had programmed Michael Jackson's Billie Jean drum pattern. Chris started to play along and I started playing chords. In terms of the lyrics, the inspiration for West End Girls came from The Message by Grandmaster Flash. I remember once staying at my cousin's house in Nottingham and we were watching some kind of gangster film with James Cagney, and just as I was dropping off to sleep, the lines 'sometimes you're better off dead, there's a gun in your hand and it's pointing to your head' came into my head and I thought 'that's quite good' so I went off to find a pen."
I always thought this song had a cold war context to it...east germany, west germany...east berlin, west berlin...
That is exactly as I always thought it to be as well-sings "west" and the whole mentioning of "Lake Geneva" and the "Finland station".
I like the way there are about three or four different meanings that people find here. The Neil Tennant quote says a lot: he heard a cool line in a film and put it in a song that was written very quickly. Thinking of Phil Collins's answer to what In the Air Tonight, I can't imagine many songwriters throwing something together in a hurry and there NOT being more than one meaning, especially here where it may have come out in somethng of a stream-of-conciousness.
That is to say: the obvious meaning of rich girls from up west looking for guys from the rough east end. But the gay thing was probably in mind as well. In Neil's native Newcastle, the west end is where the gay pubs are rather than the well-to-do. Neil Tennant didn't write anything specifically openly gay back then, so it would have to be somewhat hidden between the lines. Holding all of this kind of imagery in mind and it's easy to see how the rest of the lyrics fall into place, not about one specific subject, but about the loose concept of east meets west, but in the rougher east side.
It is a very good song which has stood time very well, considering the ephemeral nature of so much music that is firmly within the pop category.
The song on my phone is Rent not West End Girls. Why did this app show me the lyrics of the song West End Girls and even go so far as to say the name of the song is Rent?!?!
i LOVE this song
I have mixed idea of what this song 'might' mean. I'm not sure exactly but here is MY idea. Feel free to critique.
Idea 1: It is about a guy, an eastern, high class, maybe rich man that having a nervous breakdown. Why? Because he's in the west side of time where he meets his lover. Girl? Guy I don't know. If it's a girl she's leaving him and that is why he is freaking out. OR...
Idea 2: Same guy as before -high class, east side of suburban town - that falls in love with a man on the west side of town. Maybe he's fraking out because he can't believe he has homoexual feelings. The west end 'girl' could be a drag queen hooker in this case. The line 'just you wait til i get oyu home' makes me think one of the Pet Shop Boys are the 'west end girl/gay/queen' telling the story, sort of consoling the east end boy.
Both sound far fetched and down right dumb i know, but this is what i see when i hear this song. I'm the type of person that sees music videos playing in their head when they hear a good song...so in my head these ideas play like a movie in my mind.
It's about being "gay" and "classless/marginalized" in and by "history" - the "west" is "Greenwich "West" Village" in New York and London's "West End"...2 neighbourhoods linked specifically with "gay culture"...the "girls" is a gender-bender as term applied to "gay men" in gay culture and Neil does a "macrocosm" by stating "built to last in every city and every nation from Lake Geneva to the Finland Station"...reference to Edmund Wilson's history of socialism in Europe...if you listen to the 12-inch version on the cd "DISCO" there is very interesting line: "if they speak they break the law...and no one knows your name no one knows your name"...this is the "marginalization" of gays in history..."turn the pages and watch them play a different game". It's definetly about the "Cold War" as perceived in the '80s.
Just saying to all those arguing that this song is about Berlin, the music video is filmed in London and includes many landmarks of the city.