Lyrics for West End Girls as interpreted by antispork

West End Girls Lyrics
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
Ooo, 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 'till 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
And West End girls

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

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  • 28 Comments
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ApollyonCrash
09-28-2004

Rated 0 
I don't really know what this song is about, but for some reason it really freaks me out.

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sixedheart
11-11-2004

Rated 0 
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.

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rixis
03-29-2005

Rated 0 
This song reminds me of the book 1984. It's really sad but a good jam nonetheless.

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risefromruin
03-30-2005

Rated +1 
this song is obviously about drugs. probably cocaine or something of that nature.

"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"

refering to somebody whos lost it on drugs.

"Too many shadows, whispering voices "

refering to the paranoia that the drug induces.

"Faces on posters, too many choices "

too many drugs to choose from

"If, when, why, what?
How much have you got?"

if i can get it. when do you need it? why you getting it through me? what do you need? how much money do you have?

"Have you got it, do you get it, if so, how often?
And which do you choose, a hard or soft option?"

asking the dealer if hes got what he came for, then debating how to take it... smoke the rock (hard) or crush it into powder and snort (soft).

"You've got a heart of glass or a heart of stone
Just you wait 'till I get you home "

heart of glass referring to the pipe he smokes it out of. heart of stone reffering to the rock hes smoking. just you wait till i get you home... self-explainatory.


anyways, it goes on and on. this is just one man's opinion though.

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Timerevolver0109
10-08-2005

Rated 0 
When my girl friend first intrduced me to this song I was blown away. It's a great song with a great meaning. This is the only pet shop boys song I like there other music sound to fruity and gay. I have a pretty good idea what this song is about. First off I want to say this song is not about Homosexuality in any way nor drugs point blank. The lyrics of the song focus more on class issues of East End boys and West End girls.

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Timerevolver0109
10-08-2005

Rated 0 
When my girlfriend first intrduced me to this song I was blown away. It's a great song with a great meaning. This is the only pet shop boys song I like there other music sounds to fruity and gay. I have a pretty good idea what this song is about. First off I want to say this song is not about Homosexuality, drag queens etc. in any way nor drugs point blank. The lyrics of the song focus more on class issues of East End boys and West End girls in London.


I submitted it to early my bad.

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sixedheart
12-15-2005

Rated 0 
ooh it might be drugs...weird.

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sangsue
01-05-2006

Rated 0 
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."

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mightymouse
01-12-2006

Rated 0 
I always thought this song had a cold war context to it...east germany, west germany...east berlin, west berlin...

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kfe2
01-30-2006

Rated 0 
This song is the 80's and i kinda like the cold war idea.

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kfe2
01-30-2006

Rated 0 
This song is the 80's and i kinda like the cold war idea.

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CharmingMan
04-04-2006

Rated 0 
I recollect that Neil Tennant said in an interview that the song was rather made up on the spur of a moment - it used the drum pattern of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean and the lyrics were inspired by Grandmaster Flash "The Message" and a James Cagney Gangsters film (the gun line).
To me it is a mix of different narrotors highlighting London of the time and thus the cosmopolitan feel (collage) of London.

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Sozluk
05-18-2006

Rated 0 
Alright people, this song is about BERLIN. More specifically Cold War Berlin. "from lake geneva to the finland station" pretty much gives it away if you know your history.

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69er
05-19-2006

Rated 0 
I think its got a little bit of both , drugs and also the conflict on Berlin's wall , both worlds are or were dead ends , also both worlds have two sides , options , i dont know if hard or soft applies to Berlind maybe if you are talking about feelings , Mayority wise its about drugs. i think its best not to focus on something instead make it more interersting for a song writer to have different meanings .

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Online
12-19-2006

Rated 0 
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."

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hemlockroad
03-24-2007

Rated 0 
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.

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brewster39
03-07-2008

Rated 0 
I reckon this has something to do with prostitution?

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starsproject
06-20-2008

Rated 0 
This song reminds me of the book "The Outsiders", especially how Ponyboy likes that girl who's in a different social class.
I think it's basically about being attracted to somebody who life is different from ours.

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philipcfromnyc
06-20-2008

Rated 0 
This song is about a man from an well-to-do background who falls in love with another man ("and which do you choose, a hard or soft option?") and who struggles to acknowledge that what he feels is gay attraction -- love for another man...

I think that this is certainly a good (and entirely plausible) interpretation. I remember when I came out -- how terrified I was, but at the same time how wonderful it felt to stop hiding and to start living; to start being who I really was, and who I really had been all along.

That is what this song means to me...

PHILIP

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drpoundsign
07-10-2008

Rated -1 
one hit wonders those Pet Shop Boys. But GREAT song GREAT phrasing from back in the Reagan era. Came out around the same time as "Life in a Northern Town." Sounds like the old "Mod vs rocker" clash in London. Heck Cheapside was a plague-infested slum even back in the middle ages! I'm a yank but most of our bands/artists can't light a candle to their music!

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1 Reply
sokergerl1027
07-11-2008

Rated 0 
I think it basically has to do with drug use and how it transends classes, from rich (west end) and poor (east end). I dont understand the cold war refernences, lake geneva etc., fit in though.

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Brezy
08-27-2008

Rated 0 
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....

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emmabrooks88
02-11-2009

Rated 0 
I love this song at the moment.

My first impression was that this song was about the red light district. it seems to have that feel. All the boys from the east side of town, go to the west end to have a night with one of the west end 'girls'. its sort of forbidden place. I think this idea fits in with all the lyrics, bar the first verse. But this might be talking about how the "east end boys" feel trapped in their society, and they go to the west end for a meaningless night, to release.

Any thoughts?

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emmabrooks88
02-11-2009

Rated 0 
I love this song at the moment.

My first impression was that this song was about the red light district. it seems to have that feel. All the boys from the east side of town, go to the west end to have a night with one of the west end 'girls'. its sort of forbidden place. I think this idea fits in with all the lyrics, bar the first verse. But this might be talking about how the "east end boys" feel trapped in their society, and they go to the west end for a meaningless night, to release.

Any thoughts?

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emmabrooks88
02-11-2009

Rated 0 
I love this song at the moment.

My first impression was that this song was about the red light district. it seems to have that feel. All the boys from the east side of town, go to the west end to have a night with one of the west end 'girls'. its sort of forbidden place. I think this idea fits in with all the lyrics, bar the first verse. But this might be talking about how the "east end boys" feel trapped in their society, and they go to the west end for a meaningless night, to release.

Any thoughts?

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