Pet Shop Boys Community

Hey Headmaster is definitely a classic B side. I love the lopey madchester beats, great melody and superb storytelling.

…and has a great middle-eight!

This song was released during the 10 years long administration of a high school principal where I was a teacher. She was a manipulating, conniving, vindictive, divisive, two-faced snake in the grass. Every day I sang the lines
'Hey Headmaster, what's the matter with you' as I parked my car before going in to the building. Those lines held a a different point of view for me.
One of my favorite B sides!

Patrick Bateman wrote: Wed 24 Dec 2025, 11:01 am Track 77: Hey, Headmaster

Chronology: Very, Further Listening, Track 4

A true classic. I love the perspective of this track and how it is empathetic towards the troubled headmaster. The lyric 'Pack your bags up, you old bibliophile' could only be written by Neil. Redolent of Goodbye, Mr Chips and The Browning Version, it has a different tone to both It's a Sin and This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave because Neil is focusing on the individual rather than the institution.

Oh yes, it dawns on me now, there are these "Institutional" lyrics by Neil where the story takes place within a confined environment (be it a school or something of similar kind)
It's a Sin (catholic school)
This Must Be The Place (school)
Hey Headmaster (school)
The Lost Room (military school)
Cricket Wife (retirement home)
Any other?
Oh, this deserves a thread of its own.

Hey, headmaster is one of the Top 5 b sides the Boys have ever recorded. Lush, moody, with a final verse key change to die for. A stone cold classic and a magical pairing with Can you forgive her?.

NotInvisible wrote: Fri 26 Dec 2025, 6:04 am Hey, headmaster is one of the Top 5 b sides the Boys have ever recorded. Lush, moody, with a final verse key change to die for. A stone cold classic and a magical pairing with Can you forgive her?.

They do share a kind of similar universe. I always envisioned Hey, Headmaster starting off from the line "behind the bicycle shed" in Can you forgive her?. My idea being that the bicycle shed is at the school.

Track 78: Shameless

Chronology: Very, Further Listening, Track 5

And here's another classic b-side on the next single. Arguably their funniest song, satirising the desperation of the wannabes grasping for a scintilla of fame and fortune. As they commented in the Further Listening booklet, this was extremely prescient as reality TV, a dumbed-down culture and social media were about to make the protagonists of Shameless omnipresent for the next three decades.

Another from their should-have-been-a-single range, Shameless was just as zeitgeist-touching as Go West on the other side, and definitely more forward-looking. The lyric provides the definitive critique of influencer "culture" (lol!) long before it was a thing. People wouldn't understand such a song today given that the self-aggrandising exhibitionism scorned here is considered almost a human right these days.

Little touches of genius jump out. The semi-literate "But you don’t know nothing" already paints a picture of what we are dealing with. "You’re not hot enough to matter" spells out the level of depth at play. And then there is the unassailable narcissistic ambition inevitably triumphing over non-existent talent (always an optional extra). Finally, and most devastatingly, there is the magnificent use of the word "absolutely" at the very end. These people are deadly serious...and they are unstoppable.

Drico.

I think 'Shameless' was in the right place as a B-Side to 'Go West', and that the Boys did the right thing not releasing it as a single. It's a great B-Side, but over the years, I've found it a little one-dimensional and have got a touch bored of it. So it's in the right place as a B-side, I feel.

TwizzleUK wrote: Tue 30 Dec 2025, 10:54 pm I think 'Shameless' was in the right place as a B-Side to 'Go West', and that the Boys did the right thing not releasing it as a single. It's a great B-Side, but over the years, I've found it a little one-dimensional and have got a touch bored of it. So it's in the right place as a B-side, I feel.

I disagree, it's better than half of Very.

Shameless absolutely should have been a single, possibly the biggest missed opportunity in their career.

I'm with TwizzleUK on Shameless. It's a novelty track at best and whilst it probably engages with the zeitgeist and how the world is today, I find it cringey in the same way the people the PSB are lampooning do. Maybe that's the point.

The version in Closer To Heaven I also found cringey with the faux 'cockerny" accents - "I know what you FINK..."

I'd rate it a mid-tier B-Side, and it would have a been an absolute disaster if it had been a single.

Gabby wrote: Wed 31 Dec 2025, 2:33 am I'm with TwizzleUK on Shameless. It's a novelty track at best and whilst it probably engages with the zeitgeist and how the world is today, I find it cringey in the same way the people the PSB are lampooning do. Maybe that's the point.

The version in Closer To Heaven I also found cringey with the faux 'cockerny" accents - "I know what you FINK..."

I'd rate it a mid-tier B-Side, and it would have a been an absolute disaster if it had been a single.

Well, they described it as a Spitting Image song, didn't they? I do think it would have worked as a single if they'd fully committed to the video and really made it a piss-take.

I maybe going against the grain here, but I've always disliked Shameless. I love the fact they were highlighting the wretched z list culture, but the execution falls flat for me. As others have noted, it reminds me of a Spitting Image parody (in fact Spitting Image did their own PSB parody at around the same time - "how they hell, do we keep getting away with it..?")

Neil's vocal is very 'Spitting Image' on it too..

I much prefer Flamboyant which addresses and skewers the same celebrity culture, but that's just me..

y3potential wrote: Wed 31 Dec 2025, 11:14 am I maybe going against the grain here, but I've always disliked Shameless. I love the fact they were highlighting the wretched z list culture, but the execution falls flat for me. As others have noted, it reminds me of a Spitting Image parody (in fact Spitting Image did their own PSB parody at around the same time - "how they hell, do we keep getting away with it..?")

Neil's vocal is very 'Spitting Image' on it too..

I much prefer Flamboyant which addresses and skewers the same celebrity culture, but that's just me..

Flamboyant is much more admiring. The people it observes are genuinely glamorous, however OTT or ludicrous. Shameless, by comparison, is merciless. The people it observes have few, if any, redeeming qualities. It's the difference between the New Romantic and the Stage School Kiddy Pop eras. The former had the likes of Boy George and Steve Strange. The latter had S-Club-7, Kavana and Kerry Katona.

If you're going to go to the trouble of making a satirical video for How can you expect to be taken seriously?, you've probably misplaced your eye for a hit when you relegate Shameless to the b-side netherworld. Then again, perhaps they'd had enough of that kind of thing. Few jokes survive repeated tellings...

Drico.