Track-by-Track: From Please to Nonetheless

[Drico One]

This thread is for daily discussion of a Pet Shop Boys track, selected in chronological order, from studio albums starting with Please – including Further Listening – to the new album. The idea is to allow a 24-hour period of discussion for each track – then we move on to the next one. The first 11 albums will follow the Further Listening chronology (any track appearing more than once will have all of its versions discussed on first appearance). From Electric, we will follow the chronology of each single’s bonus tracks after discussing the studio album (and we will include the Annually EPs). These “rules” are so that everybody will know what the “next” track for discussion is.

Track 1: Two divided by zero

Chronology: Please, Track 1

This has a special place in the catalogue. Not only does it open Please, it effectively opens an entire career with an initial tale of escapology, clandestine romance, and mystery under cover of darkness. All the now-familiar recurring themes are to be found: the nagging concern over money, the urge to elope, and the exciting possibility of a new beginning. New York is the final destination - but we never really know if they get there. Like many Pet Shop Boys songs, the excitement and drama is to be found in the thought of escape - rather than in any actual break from mundanity itself.

I love this song to this day because it captures a sense that everything is thrillingly possible – even if it never actually happens. "Let's not go home" is a declaration to delay a return to domestic ennui. It outlines only a plan ("Tomorrow morning, we'll be miles away...") – rather than an actual escape… And that is key.

This possibility of departing from the, rarely satisfying, "here and now" will become a Pet Shop Boys leitmotif, and it is precisely this possibility that provides hope. To me, a train station platform seems to encapsulate their spirit of adventure, for it is here that they so often launch their plans for escape. Of course, their train is likely broken down (as in Birthday boy) because the thought of escape is almost always more alluring than the act itself. Even if they don’t actually depart, the sense of wonderment at what might happen if they do is always prevalent.

From Two divided by zero to Will-o-the-wisp, this theme of escape runs right through their entire oeuvre. Each track in their hallowed catalogue seems to represent another length of rail on which they can plot their triumphant departure. There is always a train to take to another place and time. As a means of drawing one in, there's hardly a better way to open an album than with the promise of adventure. And, oh, what adventures we will have…or, at least, plan to have.

Drico.

Tomorrow: West End girls (for anybody who wants to kick that discussion off), but today, have at Two divided by zero...

[telys]

I'd say Opportunities/In The Night is much more of a telling career introduction to what was to come than 2/0. Although 2/0 also revealed their past as it was a Bobby O-cooperation.
Chris doesn't get any writing credit on 2/0, that is an anomaly in the PSB catalogue.
There are several one offs in this 1985-phase of the PSB career.
They did one offs with several producers.
7'' version of A Man Could Get Arrested sounds like nothing else in their catalogue
West End girls is a typical one hit wonder, in the same vein as Aha's Take On Me is, although both bands manages to overcome this threshold.
But I remember being really happy over 2/0 when I first heard Please... I had the concern that apart from the singles I'd heard, there would be dull fillers for the rest of the album... but then it starts off with 2/0 which to my ears was just as good as West End girls, Love comes quickly or Opportunities.

[Disco.]

Two Divided by zero, is a great opener to Please “Let’s not go home…”

[Ghost within this house]

The title now feels like a comment on their own inseparability.

The urgent, dramatic plot and theme of escape is a keynote.

I love the instrumental middle 8 - the synth line with those descending chords interacting with the strings. Another taster of the classic PSB sound.

[Straight_Talker]

Excellent idea, Drico. Mods, can this be “pinned”? This will be an epic, evolving read over the next few months

[daveid]

The train announcement is at Victoria station and is the 14:27 Epsom Downs service calling at Battersea Park, Clapham Junction, Wandsworth Common, Balham (almost inaudible), Streatham Common and presumably all other stations to Epsom Downs, via West Croydon.

[Sandy Shaw]

Neil's vocal on this is wonderful. I always thought how posh he sounds on the word ''rumour''...

The tune has a part reminiscent of Divine's ''Shoot your Shot''...

[psbfannyc]

I loved when they performed "Two Divided by Zerø" on the Pandemonium Tour in 2009 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKl6-fpW7_o

[Tom Angel]

The train announcement is at Victoria station and is the 14:27 Epsom Downs service calling at Battersea Park, Clapham Junction, Wandsworth Common, Balham (almost inaudible), Streatham Common and presumably all other stations to Epsom Downs, via West Croydon.

I've never heard a train announcement in this! Is there one? I always heard the call of New York in this song, not West Croydon! Haha

[Sandy Shaw]

The train announcement is at Victoria station and is the 14:27 Epsom Downs service calling at Battersea Park, Clapham Junction, Wandsworth Common, Balham (almost inaudible), Streatham Common and presumably all other stations to Epsom Downs, via West Croydon.

I've never heard a train announcement in this! Is there one? I always heard the call of New York in this song, not West Croydon! Haha

I think I've just heard something buried in the mix. I must play this track to my (newish) partner who loves doing train announcements but doesn't know PSB very well!

[daveid]

My theory is they've gone down to Epsom racecourse by train, placed a bet on a horse, made a mint and then jetted off to New York. Fanciful, for sure but romantic.

[Kaputnik]

What about releases like Alternative, Format, Battleship Potemkin, B sides post Further listening releases, Absolutely Fabulous etc. The songs not captured by further listening albums. Just curious if there is a master list so everything is captured rather than mopping up at the end. Great idea for a thread. Though it will be insanely big, so maybe one more suggestion, each time moving onto a new album update title with album name and starting page number at the end.

[leesmapman]

2/0 will always be the first track I heard digitally, the first CD I bought...

PS: This tread will be epic, they wrote more than 300 songs over the years!

[spacewalker]

What a fantastic way to start the whole discography, even if it's not their first official song per se. Definitely in my Top 10 Pet Shop Boys songs.
Though it's strange to not have Chris as a co-writer on track №1 of album №1, it's also fair to have Bobby O as such. I love that we get to hear a bit of demo version madness in the middle bit with all those sped up vocal samples buried in the mix.
The theme of escape is really the one that defines Pet Shop Boys for me. And isn't the music escapism itself?

P.S. For some reason I've never thought they will perform this song live - and was so glad I've been mistaken.

[sterlinglush]

This is a great idea. I haven't posted on here for several years, but I'm back for this. "Two divided by zero" has been one of my favorite tracks of theirs since the album was released. It seemed to speak directly to the horror of my early life and my determination to escape from it, as if the lyrics were telling me escape didn't have to be as glamorous as dashing off to New York (I went to the West Coast and then Seoul, and onward from there) but could be done. Not so different from "Smalltown Boy," perhaps, but with a twinge more agency.