Great London Songs

2 West End Girls – Pet Shop Boys

The West End is how London’s Central and nightlife area is known. The East End is traditionally the working class part of the city to the east of town. This was more true in the 1980s, when this song was released than it is now, certain parts of the East End are quite upmarket these days. It was released first in 1984 and then a remixed version went to number 1 in the UK and US the following year. It is a great song that captures the tension in the growing gap between rich and poor that was happening in urban centers at the time. To me it always brings back memories of living in the South London (also less affluent) and working in the West End during the 1980s. It was voted the UK’s best No.1 single by the Guardian in 2004 and it was used as the closing song of the 2012 London Olympics.

The video for the single is very London too, it has images of a deserted Petticoat Lane Market, Waterloo Station, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square and the No. 42 bus among other iconic London views. E17 (East End boys) had a hit with a cover of this and Flight of the Conchords did a brilliant parody with “Inner City Pressure”

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