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Rent : Bottomlessly poignant

Posted: Sat 29 Apr 2006, 3:32 am
by Naughty Zoot
There was a column in the Guardian today about Pop songs about money. There were several examples about money songs over the years but I thought this section re: Rent was especially good:

" The flipside of financial dependency is examined on the Pet Shop Boys' bottomlessly poignant Rent, in which a kept woman ponders the cost of living in luxury. This is one of the truly great pop lyrics. When Neil Tennant sings "Look at my hopes, look at my dreams, the currency we've spent", the whole meaning pivots on an ambiguous punctuation mark - should that be a comma or a colon? "

Posted: Sat 29 Apr 2006, 8:25 am
by Dog
Surely the ambiguous bit is "I love you(;/,) you pay my rent".

Posted: Sat 29 Apr 2006, 8:30 am
by ArseSpanker
Obviously, it should be a semi-colon. Crazy fool...

Rent is actually my favorite song and lyric of all time. It's not that original an idea to compare love and money, especially in 80's pop, but Rent is clearly head and shoulders above any other lyricists attempts.