Pet Shop Boys Community

Boring track. I usually skip this.

Hauntingly beautiful. As summery as Se a vida é but calmer, with a "Sunday morning" feeling. You can hear Neil's happiness of being in love, not just in his voice, also in the instrumentation. There have been scarce moments of such warmth in their career. More recently on The secret of happiness.

Track 94: "A Red Letter Day"

Chronology: Bilingual, Track 7

Cards on the table, I like A Red Letter Day, particularly the Waiting for Godot line but its inclusion here shows how the whole concept of Bilingual was half-arsed. It's Semi-Bilingual really. I kind of wish they'd committed to it more and everything was Spanish/Portuguese rather than, erm, Russian.

A Red Letter Day is also a turning point for PSB. When the single finally comes out in 1997, we're nearly four years on from Go West and a casual observer might conclude that they're repeating themselves to ever-diminishing returns (certainly by the time of the next single). It enters the top ten, then plummets out of the Top 40 the next week.

They're now a fanbase act, with a loyal band of misfits buying the single on multiple formats on the Monday release, while a disinterested world moves on to something else. Block Rockin' Beats enters the chart the week PSB fall to number 42. That's obviously a much better single and very much of the zeitgeist. The dumper is calling and the worst studio album of their career is imminent.

Yeah A red letter day is a mixed bag. If we talk about remixes then we're on good ground, but the single was rather PSB by numbers at that point. Lyrically excellent though - although maybe too high brow for the masses as well.

Agree that the Bilingual South American vibe was ejected in favour of the Russian slant Neil just can't drag himself away from. Could this have been styled in a Latino way? Maybe...maybe...I'd like to hear that actually.

Like the single version, and some excellent remixes, the 12” red vinyl looks great.

I love A Red Letter Day. The lyrics are beautiful, complicated (Godot, fading to insignificance... etc) but also very simple (someone saying I love you). The message in the lyrics is sweet happysad. The melody is beautiful. I recently taught myself how to play it on the piano. One of their best songs.
I kind of wish for a longer album version, 6-7 minutes, with an extra chorus and more of the choir and Black Sun (the drum intro).
A Red Letter Day is a highpoint in their career.

I love A red letter day, it's among my 5 favourite PSB songs and it has probably always been this way since I first got PopArt. To me personally (30 years later) it doesn't really matter whether they were repeating themselves at the time, because in my opinion A red letter day is a much better song than Go west anyway, and they even wrote it themselves which is a plus (and I do like Go west a lot, actually).

It's just really beautiful, this expressed sense of longing for something, the way the song questions the meaning of day to day life. Yes, the lyrics might be simple at times, but I think they are some of Neil's best. "But for all of those who don't fit in, who follow their instincts and are told they sin..." has long been a favourite of mine for example, and same with the complete first verse.

That being sad, I never liked the album version on Bilingual. It just sounds really wrong to me after growing up with the single version that is on PopArt. So for that new mix alone I'm glad they released it as a single. I for one would enjoy it if they played this instead of Go west at Dreamworld shows this summer.

For me, it's a great song. The chorus is anthemic, very PSB-esque.

I think the problem is that the chorus sounds very much like Go West, and especially for a casual listener, it's easy to think, "More of the same, but worse." I think it was an obvious choice for a single if you look at the album's track listing... But... it probably would have been better for their status if they had opted for something else (Metamorphosis, To Step Aside, The Survivors) and "A Red" had remained just an album track.

I never supported any of their singles as much as A Red Letter Day. At the time, it felt strange that none of the singles became a real hit. Before that, every album had produced at least one big song. I would have chosen Up Against It or To Step Aside, but I didn’t question their decision.

Radio Stockholm played the song every day at my workplace, so it’s a good memory for me. The video, however, was shown mainly on VH1, where MTV moved artists they thought were no longer interesting to young people. I understand why.

It seemed that Bilingual was for Pet Shop Boys what The Visitors was for ABBA: a final album that hard-core fans value as their best, and a good time to end while still on top.

markus wrote: Wed 04 Feb 2026, 9:43 pm I would have chosen Up Against It or To Step Aside, but I didn’t question their decision.

Why Up Against It wasn't a single will always baffle me. I feel like it could have been massive, but maybe at that point in their career nothing would have really made a difference.

Gabby wrote: Wed 04 Feb 2026, 9:50 pm

markus wrote: Wed 04 Feb 2026, 9:43 pm I would have chosen Up Against It or To Step Aside, but I didn’t question their decision.

Why Up Against It wasn't a single will always baffle me. I feel like it could have been massive, but maybe at that point in their career nothing would have really made a difference.

I made a mixtape to someone into Radiohead and Jamiroquai, he liked Up Against It. So you're probably right.

When I was giving examples of other songs they could have released as singles that wouldn't remind people of Go West and therefore wouldn't convey that somewhat desperate search for success by replicating their last big hit, I completely forgot about Up Against It. Personally, I prefer To Step Aside Metamorphosis and The Survivors, but I think perhaps the best option would have been Up Against It.

telys wrote: Wed 04 Feb 2026, 8:11 pm The lyrics are beautiful, complicated (Godot, fading to insignificance... etc) but also very simple (someone saying I love you). The message in the lyrics is sweet happysad. The melody is ..."

See, I agree with all of this. Lyrically, it's a treasure - Neil exquisitely captures the feeling of hoping-against-hopefulness, especially with the line "like Christmas morning when you’re a kid". The verse melody is very sweet but something about the chorus just doesn't push the sad-euphoric button for me, only the sad one, and that brings it all down for me.

Musically, my preferred version of this is the Trouser Enthusiasts' remix on the Bilingual Special Edition. The BSE really sold me on the idea of PSB.

Patrick Bateman wrote: Wed 04 Feb 2026, 7:11 pm They're now a fanbase act, with a loyal band of misfits buying the single on multiple formats on the Monday release, while a disinterested world moves on to something else. Block Rockin' Beats enters the chart the week PSB fall to number 42. That's obviously a much better single and very much of the zeitgeist. The dumper is calling and the worst studio album of their career is imminent.

Ooh, harsh. Neil hoist with his own petard. Not singling you out personally here, Patrick, but this is a very curious aspect of this thread: I thought we were here to discuss the merits of each individual song but instead I'm watching some of you longtimers grieve as your childhood favorite act seems to go off the rails one single and one curious business decision at a time and you're personally insulted by this. Twelve years would be a miraculous career in anyone's book. Now begins the long walk through the musical wilderness until the fanbase develops a) more disposable income and b) a sense of nostalgia and c) gets people in positions of influence who can spread the gospel to a new generation.

It's quite a good track but the production is a bit lightweight and not keen on the Russian choir bit really. Certainly a bit PSB-by numbers, reckon they could throw out tracks like this at will in the mid nineties

agreed Up Against It would have been a decent first single in that era - Johnny Marr for Britpop cred, and it'd been a good distinct move on from the Very era. To Step Aside is the best song on the album but not sure if it would have worked as a single. That weird children singing sample might have been a bit of a turn off for some

I think Patrick’s point of view is fair and understandable. If you look at Discography and the single releases that would have formed its sequel, the contrast is striking. Compare tracks like Opportunities, Suburbia, and Left to My Own Devices with what would have appeared on a Discography 2: Liberation, Before, and Somewhere. You can’t help but wonder what happened there.