"My Head Is Spinning" (1993)

[listen]

And so to the Chris Lowe album—but now wait a minute, is it fair to call the Relentless half of Very the Chris Lowe album? Let's consider some of the clues. I recall loose and unsubstantiated rumors at the time claiming Relentless was "the" Chris Lowe album, largely based on a semipopular notion that Neil Tennant was the lyricist and singer in the ever-enigmatic enterprise, and Lowe, who affected the Harpo Marx style in interviews and public appearances, was the technical wizard at the soundboard with a taste for dance ("because he must be doing something"). The pop melody, arguably the single strongest suit of the Pet Shop Boys, is apparently not considered in this take. Very is certainly a more perfect union of all the instincts of the Pet Shop Boys for pop—with equal doses of irony, romance, melody, and dance mania. It is their great disco screed against rock. The lyrics, often dry and absurd, are among their most memorable, and they had enough dance juice going they turned out a rave concept LP to accompany it. The metadata on my Relentless CD of the original UK release with the extra disc says "Chris Lowe" for composer, an exciting clue. But then Lowe is also listed as the sole composer in the metadata for all three versions I have of the Very album itself: the original US release, the original UK, and the 2001 Further Listening package. I suspect someone has been playing walrus-was-Paul jokes.

In the greater concept (which quite possibly lives only in my own head)—that is, the after-hours dance fever portion—the revelry starts with the last official track on Very, the cover of the Village People's "Go West," cluttered as it is with a hidden track. This hidden track, "Postscript (I Believe in Ecstasy)," is sung by Chris Lowe, as perhaps one more cryptic signal that what follows is the Chris Lowe album, but also setting up the after-hours dance rave concept that follows by striking the themes of ecstasy and faith. "I believe in ecstasy," Lowe says/sings barely above a mumbling tone. And ecstasy is what we will have. "My Head Is Spinning" is not a rip-roaring dance number. It's riding on the currents set in motion toward the end of "Go West" and it knows there's nearly 40 minutes of music and dancing still ahead. Say by way of concept that we have just entered this after-hours rave following a good night elsewhere (ballgame, concert) and in this thought experiment fantasy say that we have also lucked into some good clean variation or other of MDMA walking into the club. And say the first thing we heard was "Go West," which is rousing no matter what your mental condition may be, and you danced very hard in the excitement and pleasure of it, no thoughts just joy captured in the physical moment when the song settles into its groove and then elevates it. "My Head Is Spinning" in this scenario (thus aptly titled) takes almost a full minute to rev up to speed and then it's only a moderate one, powered by a simple bass and systematically building layers of hooks—moderate but insistently insinuating. By the time it breaks open to announce its lyric fragments it's likely you're dancing and responding. Yes, that includes your living room or bedroom. This is the good stuff—Chris Lowe given his full dance DJ head in the studio (or say that's the concept). Around 4:00 the eerie laughter of a theatrical harlequin figure is heard and though it's not entirely a comforting sound—"my head is spinning, my head is spinning," they keep saying—it's a good dance song and there's a lot more of that ahead. It won't stop for a while.