Fugitive: Love Song for 9/11 Terrorists

[!]

but as I said, having said that, people are people and I just wonder if people would be so light about neils lyric had the event targeted a situation a littlemore closer to the forums.....um...fabulousness.

You know, I'm going to stop replying to your posts because you're pissing me off more and more.

[Janet Street-Porter]

And why is the song necessarily about 9-11? It seems far more likely that it was inspired by last summer`s suicide attacks in London.

The plane sounds suggest it's 9-11. I keep staring at the sky listening to it; it's an incredibly powerful track, possibly the bravest they've ever done. It is, like Go West, elegiac.

Is there a moratorium on when you can write about historical events? Are the Russians in My October symphony off limits too?

[Eldritch]

having said that, I am sure it would have been a whole other story had the terrorists continued their hate agenda and target gays in an extreme attack.
.

Exactly. The fundamental Islamists really are astonishingly and admirably tolerant when it comes to gays.

[joncool5]

I already said I recognize the song as being simply a account of a certain viewpoint.

but as I said, having said that, people are people and I just wonder if people would be so light about neils lyric had the event targeted a situation a littlemore closer to the forums.....um...fabulousness.


thats all.

fabulousness? That's a new word to me. I'll ask my girlfriend what it means when she returns from work .

[Kirk Mack]

having said that, I am sure it would have been a whole other story had the terrorists continued their hate agenda and target gays in an extreme attack

I don't think this is true, actually. The PSB canon is extremely personal and has generally shied from any sort of examination of homophobia aside from utopian political dreams. If you think terrorists attacking homosexuals is "closer to home" than terrorists attacking English in the subways then you've got a pretty warped brain.

You may be forgetting about Birthday boy? That dealt with homophobia in the Matthew Sheppard verse, though it wasn't from the attackers point of view. I would honestly be surprised if Neil would ever do that, though....

[Monty--]

I can't really enjoy a song if its basically about nine 11. How can you sing along with that? I feel the same with films made about 9/11. I refuse to watch them. They are forms of entertainment and should not be viewed as such.

[a powerful friend]

It's not about nine 11. Richard X might have made people to intepret it that way in the remix with the plane-taking off sample at the beginning and the explosion sample at the end. I wonder if he should have included those since it does skew one's thoughts to it. Without those references, it's a song that works on different levels.

I disagreed with Deschanel's view that the song is about romantising the hijackers and terrorists. Neil sang it in such a sad way like he's losing a brother to an ideology that he doesn't believe in. There's so much sadness and hopelessness in the song. This is similar to how he sang Go West where he was expressing the hopelessness of a utopia west. After all, he did sang Integral from the UK govt point of view but he's against ID cards.

[crizzab]

I liked this track..

but now I want to vomit.

It's a love song, romanticising Mohammed Atta.

It's a tribute to the romantic bravery of the 9/11 hijackers.

Never mind the men, women, and infants aboard those planes, their pain and terror when they knew their fates.

This is what "Fuigitive" is about?

Romanticizing murderers, who slit pilots' throats, to traumatize the world and my city, NYC.

I'm shaken. I am blown away that Neil Tennant wrote such a song, no matter how badly he hates Bush. There's millions of us who do as well. And November elections are coming..

Martin Amis wrote a story for the New Yorker magazine, "The Last Day of Muhammed Atta".

It's fairly scorching in its characterizations. On the contrary, "Fugitive" is an ecstatic meditation, highly sympathetic, to the presumably high ideals of thise murderers.
Apparently Neil is too above it all when he romanticizes what it takes to slit a man's throat and crash the planes into buildings.

If PSB and Neil Tennant wants to characterize, and romanticize, the 9/11 hijackers as heroes, it's his right to do so.

But I am utterly shaken and nauseated that PSB thought they should do so.
I'm extremely disgusted, but perhaps that was the pointless f***ing point.

Martin Amis beat you to it Neil. Fusk!~ I liked the song but it makes me sick to hear it now.

i agree. i can't even bear to look at anthony hopkins ever since he made silence of the lambs. i would've had no idea he was a twisted, murdering cannibal were it not for that film. what a pig. and to think he was knighted!

this is one of the most absurd things i've ever read. what a lazy, knee-jerk analysis.

[patrick]

You may be forgetting about Birthday boy? That dealt with homophobia in the Matthew Sheppard verse, though it wasn't from the attackers point of view.

Which verse?

[patrick]

I can't really enjoy a song if its basically about nine 11. How can you sing along with that?

You must hate an awful lot of Pet Shop Boys songs then...

[patrick]

Neil sang it in such a sad way like he's losing a brother to an ideology that he doesn't believe in.

Exactly. It's a very powerful song but it's not going to work for those listeners who prefer to think in terms of "us and them" and pretend that terrorists don't have families stunned by their actions.

[Zog]

I can't really enjoy a song if its basically about nine 11. How can you sing along with that? I feel the same with films made about 9/11. I refuse to watch them. They are forms of entertainment and should not be viewed as such.

I hope you didn't watch "The Titanic" or any other disaster movie based on (or close to) real events.


-Zog

[a powerful friend]

Neil sang it in such a sad way like he's losing a brother to an ideology that he doesn't believe in.

Exactly. It's a very powerful song but it's not going to work for those listeners who prefer to think in terms of "us and them" and pretend that terrorists don't have families stunned by their actions.

That's why it's hidden on Fundamentalism, that bonus cd which will be purchased by fans mainly. It's intelligent pop with lyrics to be enjoyed by fans who understand the true meaning of the song and not suitable for the general "us and them" audience (should put that warning label for it).

[303krs]

WTF ! OPEN YOUR MIND ! IT'S CLEVER AND SENSITIVE !

It's the most exciting song that has been released by the PSB since Being Boring ! I'd love to find it on the Minimal single...

[Axonthenet]

Well, I've read the lyrics but I haven't heard the song yet. It's a choice, because I want to listen to the whole album when it will be released.

Anyway, I've read your comments about the song and I've red the lyrics, so I wanted to say what do I think about it. I think we should consider the writing process behind the song and why Neil has chosen the point of view of a terrorist. I think that if he had written a song about terrorism from the point of view of the victims or their families, "Fugitive" would be a very banal song. Neil chose take the terrorist's point of view and force us to identifiying with him. That's because the "Fugitive" lyrics seem so hard to accept, but in my opinion Neil has written a great song without falling into any clichè or moralizing upon the subject of the song. In my opinion it's a very intelligent althought disturbing way of speaking about such a subject but this is the kind of songs with more than one reading levels that make Pet Shop Boys a great group not only of musicians but also of Authors.

Axon