Shopping

'Shopping' is an album track from Actually.

All versions of this song: Shopping (song)/Versions.

Production and Recording

At least two producers where approached to work on this track with Pet Shop Boys.

Neil Chris and I loved 'Word Up' by Cameo, so we decided to write something in the style of Cameo. Being us, we then thought, 'why don't we get Larry Blackmon of Cameo to produce it?' So we met him -- he was on tour -- and played him the track, and it was sort of going to happen, but it didn't. Then we wanted Keith Forsey, who had worked with Giorgio Moroder and had just been producing Billy Idol, to do it, but he had no interest in doing it. I was rather hurt, actually.

The keyboard which sounds like a guitar is, according to the band, a tribute to New Order's Peter Hook.

Lyrics

We're buying and selling your history
How we go about it is no mystery
We check it with the city then change the law
Are you looking forward?
Now you want some more

We're S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G
We're shopping

It's easy when you've got all the information
Inside help, no investigation
No questions in the house
no give and take
There's a big bang in the city
We're all on the make

We're S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G
We're shopping

Our gain is your loss
That's the price you pay
I heard it in the House of Commons
Everything's for sale

We're S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G
We're shopping

'Shopping' is the first in a series of songs where the lyrics involve spelling out words.

Neil The song started as a joke, with Chris and I walking down Oxford Street singing 'S-H-O-P-P-l-N-G' when we were shopping. The word 'shopping' is somehow a humorous word.

Chris We used to sing it everywhere. It was like 'P-A-S-S-I-O-N'; 'Passion' by Bobby '0'.

Neil I think we decided we were actually going to write a song called 'Shopping' one day in Milan, shopping. I don't think anyone had ever written a song about shopping, and it's such a common human activity, and in the Eighties it ceased to be presented as a necessity and instead became a leisure activity. The Eighties were very concerned with buying and selling. However I couldn't think of anything articulacy interesting to say about shopping so the words are about the government selling off nationalised inductees. We were obviously against it. At the time it was oppressive in London -- there were these flaming adverts saying 'Tell Sid', the campaign for the government gas sell-off. When this album came out many people, including ourselves, took the whole album to be loosely about Thatches, because you have this song, about nationalised industries, you have poverty in 'King's Cross', you have Aids in 'It couldn't happen here'. 'Shopping' is also the other song, along with 'Opportunities', which created the myth that the Pet Shop Boys were ironic. Songs where you take the character of someone you hate. 'Shopping' takes the character of this hideous city type in Fulham or somewhere, and the idea that, in the same way you might go shopping for a Hermes scarf, they'll go shopping for essential services and nationalised industries.

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