Pet Shop Boys Community

DopeFiend wrote: Fri 18 Sep 2026, 4:16 pm The word "shit" in a PSB song.

Not for the first time

They're such boomers. Neil is like your boring Facebook uncle who once watched a documentary about how scurrilous Putin is and whenever anything political comes up always brings it back to that. I miss the Fundamental days.

richwill wrote: Fri 18 Sep 2026, 4:24 pm They're such boomers. Neil is like your boring Facebook uncle who once watched a documentary about how scurrilous Putin is and whenever anything political comes up always brings it back to that. I miss the Fundamental days.

Well Putin is the evil scum of the Earth and he needs removing from it asap..hopefully sooner rather than later!

TallThinMan wrote: Fri 18 Sep 2026, 4:12 pm I don't know what the status of songs like this is. There's no mention of it on their official website. It doesn't appear to be a demo.

Weirdly it's not even on Spotify...

Who’s refreshing the OS every 10 seconds then, in case they drop another limited edition (of 50) 7” single of this before it ends up on eBay for £450?

A top secret washing machine

Who washes Putin’s underpants?
Who has to keep them clean
deep in the bowels of his residence
in a top secret washing machine?

Who keeps his secrets secret?
Is nothing or everything true?
Is he fatally ill or strong as a horse
impossible to know or get close to?

When he poisons an opponent’s underpants
does he laugh at his brilliant scheme
knowing he’s got to the root of the problem
deadly but somehow obscene?

Is it difficult to sleep at night?
Does he always sleep alone
with nightmares of a prison cell
summoned to be be judged and to atone?

No, he’ll get away with anything
like Stalin and Peter the Great
He’s the only one that ever matters
He knows what he must dictate

Meanwhile his underpants are washed
by a loyal woman or man
and his secrets will be secret until
that one unfortunate day his shit hits the fan

tottenhammattspurs wrote: Fri 18 Sep 2026, 4:15 pm Came for the snare rolls, did not disappoint

The occasional single snare hit has been removed, at least...

Anyway, I like it. It's not a single, or new album teaser. Just a polished demo they're putting out there. And I'm grateful for it.

And who else would release a song about Putin's underpants?

richwill wrote: Fri 18 Sep 2026, 4:24 pm They're such boomers. Neil is like your boring Facebook uncle who once watched a documentary about how scurrilous Putin is and whenever anything political comes up always brings it back to that. I miss the Fundamental days.

They really are.

Well, he obviously thinks that Putin is destroying Russia, which he in a way is that war is a tragedy, hundreds of thousands of people have died, and if wasn’t for Putin this would most likely not have happened.

The description ties the song to the Russian legislative elections of 18–20 September 2026 and quotes Navalny in court (2 February 2021): “Vladimir the Poisoner of Underpants — that’s how he will go down in history.” 
So it is not an anonymous pastiche. It is the direct sequel to Living in the Past (2023) and Hymn (2025).
What the song does
It takes the Navalny case — Novichok in the seam of the underwear, then FSB agents who have to wash the poisoned garment — and reverses the gaze. No longer the victim’s laundry: the sponsor’s, “in the bowels of his residence,” in a “top secret washing machine.”
Power is no longer seen through speeches, parades or Stalingrad, but through dirty laundry. That is typically Tennant: the grand imperial narrative reduced to a household chore.
Structure
Six blocks, almost all questions, then a single “No” that breaks the rhythm.
1. Who washes?
2. Who really knows? (ill / strong as a horse, nothing / everything true)
3. Does he laugh when he poisons an opponent’s underpants?
4. Does he sleep? Does he fear judgment?
5. No. He’ll get away with anything, like Stalin and Peter the Great.
6. Meanwhile a loyal woman or man actually runs the machine — until the day “his shit hits the fan.”
The “No” is the pivot. The questions hint at a conscience, insomnia, a crack. The answer shuts them down: no useful nightmare, no atonement. Only impunity… and the laundry that keeps turning.
Second degree
Yes, but satirical, not coded.
• Obscene / deadly: “deadly but somehow obscene” — the state crime made ridiculous (poison in the briefs), as Navalny had already done.
• Stalin / Peter the Great: the same references as in Living in the Past, here from the outside, not in Putin’s mouth. Not admiration; the genealogy the regime claims, turned against it.
• “He’s the only one that ever matters”: the autocrat who takes himself for the sole subject of History, while an anonymous person does the wash.
• Scatological punchline: “shit hits the fan” — the state secret becomes ordinary shit again. A very British, very Pet Shop Boys ending.
A reading that this is a disguised pro-Putin song does not hold: the YouTube title, the Navalny quote, “poisons an opponent’s underpants,” the prison cell, the judgment, the fan. Nothing is inverted. The second degree is political grotesque, not ideological reversal.
Place in the catalogue
Cruder and more sketch-like than Hymn (hymn / litany). More domestic and comic than Living in the Past (Stalinist monologue). Same line: Putin as poison, a past that will not pass, a fall someday. Here the underpants motif — already a worldwide joke in 2020 — becomes the centre of the picture.
In short: official satire, timed to the 2026 elections, unambiguously anti-Putin, second degree of laundry and ridicule, not a cryptic tribute.

richwill wrote: Fri 18 Sep 2026, 4:24 pm They're such boomers. Neil is like your boring Facebook uncle who once watched a documentary about how scurrilous Putin is and whenever anything political comes up always brings it back to that. I miss the Fundamental days.

Imagine having a problem with a song mocking Putin.

Totally great. Looks like Neil is angry.

NotInvisible wrote: Fri 18 Sep 2026, 4:45 pm

richwill wrote: Fri 18 Sep 2026, 4:24 pm They're such boomers. Neil is like your boring Facebook uncle who once watched a documentary about how scurrilous Putin is and whenever anything political comes up always brings it back to that. I miss the Fundamental days.

Imagine having a problem with a song mocking Putin.

Yes.

richwill wrote: Fri 18 Sep 2026, 4:24 pm They're such boomers. Neil is like your boring Facebook uncle who once watched a documentary about how scurrilous Putin is and whenever anything political comes up always brings it back to that. I miss the Fundamental days.

It's rather more than that. I should imagine they have a few friends in Russia back from when they used to perform there.

TallThinMan wrote: Fri 18 Sep 2026, 4:54 pmIt's rather more than that. I should imagine they have a few friends in Russia back from when they used to perform there.

It's also a country and culture Neil has always been interested in, with references dating back to the imperial phase. But then again if you're looking for any stick to beat them with, reality doesn't really matter...