West End Girls

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."

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....

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."

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...

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.

This is about the "clip joints" in Soho London during the 80's/90's.

The West End Girls are the hostesses.

The East End boys are most of the Barmen, many of whom lived in the East End.

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

When trying to get the bill paid (sometimes 100's or 1000's of Pounds), kicking in chairs and knocking down tables would often be an intimidation technique (particularly in the more unscrupulous establishments).

Once the bill had been collected, common practice was to go to another club (usually owned by the same people), and hide there; so the Police, if/when called would find nobody there, or even a whole different staff

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?)

Again this refers to collecting bills.

We've got no future, we've got no past Here today, built to last

Most people were working here "on the black" - hence admitted no past.

In every city, in every nation from Lake Geneva to the Finland station (How far have you been?)

Most cities have similar clubs, and many of the girls were from other countries.

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.

This song was inspired by gangster films and a TS Elliot's poem, "The Waste Land". The poem speaks of "unreal" cities. I don't think you can get more "unreal" than post war Berlin. But, I think the song may be relating to all cities where there is a division. Dickins', who is quoted in "The Waste Land", wrote extensively about class structure, so it may be a division of class, ideology or something else. It is just an exploration in social and economic differences.