"Young Offender" (1993)

[listen]

"Young Offender" comes floating in like a jet airliner landing roaring at a busy airport. The lights are flashing. It's probably night. On the ground, Neil Tennant's (I presume) tilt at petulance in a world where youth is preferred currency is doomed to failure as all such expressions are. Age having a go at youth, as noted by Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange, is never a pretty sight. We are each fated to age and die—aging still the better alternative. But along the way this singer gets off a few good ones, notably "I've been a teenager since before you were born," which remains just right. Or, "I'll put down my book and start falling in love. Or isn't that done?" Otherwise there's not much more to this song. Under the lush packaging and razor wit it's pretty much a ditty. It's better, in fact, when there's no singing and it's just working on its groove. "Young offender, what's your defense?" The words are cutting but we know who's going to win this dispute. The question is whether the older fellow knows he is the vulnerable one or merely believes he is scoring points. Perhaps that knowledge accounts for the faint but distinct melancholy of this song (still a lift from the abyss of "To Speak Is a Sin"). On the fade, "Young Offender" still sounds like an airport but now it's more like 3 a.m. and quiet, much less busy, and the singer might be alone. Perhaps someone was supposed to pick him up and hasn't arrived yet. I imagine traffic on a nearby freeway visible through big airport windows, the white headlights going one direction and the red taillights another. There's always someone else will come along. That's how youth works, and this singer should know it, but maybe he doesn't.