Episode Ep 888 March 20, 2026 54 min 35s

Neil Tennant revisits songs he’s written since the age of nine

From Word In Your Ear Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

Neil Tennant co-wrote a musical at Primary School and soon decided that “learning other people’s songs was hard work compared with making up your own”. He’s chosen some from the Pet Shop Boys’ 40-year catalogue, hits and obscurities, in ‘One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem’, just out in paperback, and added fascinating notes about their context and composition. This very funny and revealing conversation lands on the following …

... the first song he ever wrote

… auditioning for Rocket Records in 1975

… does songwriting have rules?

… how Chris Lowe tamed his inner “musical snob”

… rap, Brecht-Weill, Betjeman, Noel Coward, My Fair Lady and the art of “speak-singing”

… the decades of lyrics stored in our brains

… the Songwriting Bootcamp that produced What Have I Done To Deserve This?

… the essence of melancholy (and the chord that expresses it)

… “the sound of words is often more important than the sense”

… whether Dylan deserved the Nobel Prize for Literature

… West End Girls and whether to rap in English or American

… the writing of King's Cross, Cricket Wife, Odd Man Out and I Made My Excuses And Left