Any song that utilises nostalgia as a main theme is likely to be crass, sentimental, and rose-tinted. Nostalgia is a booming trade these days. Nothing is sacred. Not even memories. They inevitably become sepia-toned and improve with time. Rarely are they genuine. Or heart-felt. Being boring manages to avoid the excesses of nostalgia by remembering the pain of the past as well as the pleasure. Times change. People change. Emotions change. Time brings death and loss. And loss is never rose-tinted. True loss becomes only more manageable, because there is nothing else for us to do except manage it. It can never be dressed-up, just addressed. And in life, change brings only two things: enrichment and loss. We gain new friendships and experiences only by shedding previous ones. And sometimes, the old ones were deeper.
I can’t think of any other song by this English pop duo that could have me writing like I am right now. That’s not to say that I believe this to be their peak. I believe this to be their most emotionally prescient song. It’s the reason that this song is considered their best by many. It reflects the experiences of us all in some way or other. Some feel the meaning more acutely than others. But everybody old enough to regret feels its tug. It’s the story of life and lives. Of love and loss. Of hope and expectation. Of youth and experience. Of bitter reality and the passage of time. It’s a monument to the writing talents of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. It is also the most gloriously hyped song that this duo will ever construct. Because it is about us. And nobody is more important than us. Not to us. And who else matters?
Detractors of Being boring are few. Detractors of the myth of Being boring are more easily found. And they are correct to identify a myth. The myth in question hacks at the true beauty of the song. It revolves around the selfish notion that Being boring is the PSB peak because “I’ve lost someone.” Being boring is considered by many to be an elegy. The narrator, Tennant, is not an old man. But he seems to have lost. And lost many. The lines “All the people I was kissing / Some are here and some are missing” suggest that some kind of plague or war has vanquished his loved ones. Tennant’s personal history and his pre-occupation with the consequences of AIDS, as evinced in songs like Domino dancing and Dreaming of the Queen, suggest that it is AIDS that has caused him such loss. To my mind, and I know that I’m being controversial here, some fans of the band have jumped on this as some form of personal collective vindication or expression of special poignancy. This is perfectly understandable in itself. But some then take this to extremes and will not hear of another song gaining more acclaim among the overall fan-base. AIDS has possibly touched more fans of this duo than some other bands, but let’s not obscure a simple fact: loss affects everyone. We all feel it. Maybe some have not lost as much as others. But the revisionist thinking that stops the PSB clock at November 1990 fails to address the simple fact that if this song was so touching to the fan-base, which was a lot larger then, why did it flop so badly? Too many people now think this song is the greatest PSB track for anyone to believe that they all rushed out and bought it in 1990. The myth grew over the years. It became a Stalinist point of fact. It became the song of snobbery. “Oh yes, Being boring was their best.” Yes, it might well be the greatest. But it might well not be either. Love this gorgeous record for itself, not for what others tell you to. It’s far too beautiful to become a cliché, the thing to say. The song to be seen with. Being boring is not a fashion accessory or a statement of superior taste or an expression of self-pity. It is a dignified distillation of life and loss. It’s a celebration of who we are and of what we do. Those things we had always wanted to do. And did.
Brian O’Driscoll.
Created and maintained by Marcin Wichary.
Switch to Being Remixed design.