"Yesterday,When I Was Mad" is a song by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys,released as the fifth and final single from their fifth studio album,Very (1993),on 30 August 1994 by Parlophone. The single,both written and produced by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe,peaked at number 13 on the UK Singles Chart and number four on the US BillboardDance Club Play chart. The song was remixed by Jam &Spoon for its single release,[4] among other things removing a compression effect applied to Tennant's voice during the verses.[citation needed] Its music video was directed by Howard Greenhalgh,depicting a straitjacket-clad Tennant trapped in a surreal psychiatric hospital.
"Yesterday,When I Was Mad" is about the stresses of touring and how being away from loved ones can make musicians unwilling to trust others or carry on with their career,contrasting it with the humour of ironic,pretentious,or rude things people say to touring musicians. Tennant has said that many of the lines in the song,such as "And someone said,'It's fabulous you're still around today—you've both made such a little go a very long way!'",actually happened.[5] Speaking to NME in 1993,Tennant commented that the song was "basically about the strange things that happened to us when we were on the last tour",[6] in reference to the 1991 Performance Tour,which is chronicled in Pet Shop Boys versus America by Chris Heath.[7]
Critical reception
Dave Jennings of Melody Maker named "Yesterday,When I Was Mad" as one of the magazine's "singles of the week",calling it a "magnificent piece of bitchery" with "glorious lyrics". He remarked,"Pet Shop Boys aren't exactly the first band you'd expect to write a brilliant rock 'n' roll on-the-road song;but that's just what they've done here,skewering the sycophants and patronising slimeballs hanging around their tour with malicious delight."[8] Alan Jones from Music Week gave the song a score of three out of five,calling it "a bright tongue-in-cheek romp,but its galloping disco style makes few concessions to melody."[2]David Quantick from NME said,"My theory is that they are now entering a period of being completely barking mad. This single bears it out,with its Noël Coward cover and its Broadway hell version of 'Can You Forgive Her?'."[9]
Brad Beatnik from the Record Mirror Dance Update noted,"This duo seem to be getting more excited about dance mixes with each single they put out. This one,another idiosyncratic and charming pop song,has about eight mixes."[10] Another Record Mirror editor,James Hamilton,named it a "hi-NRG galloper" in his weekly dance column.[1]Stuart Maconie from Select wrote,"Their flair for a catty joke is generously displayed on 'Yesterday When I Was Mad',where the duo are dissected by a media harpy while mad acid house whips the drama along."[11] Jonathan Bernstein from Spin viewed it as "a wry litany of faint praise with which the pair have been damned".[12]Sylvia Patterson from Smash Hits gave it a full score of five out of five and named it Best New Single,writing,"All of this we expect,but this one's their campest techno-fevered thunder-stomp with 100% whistleability for ages."[13]
Music video
A music video was produced to promote the single. It was directed by British director of music videos and advertising Howard Greenhalgh,and as with his previous videos for the Very campaign,makes prominent use of computer graphics. The video was filmed on 21 July 1994 at Westminster Hospital,which was closed at the time,and West Middlesex Hospital,which was in use. Taking the song's theme of "madness" to mean insanity rather than anger,it features a straitjacket-clad Tennant trapped in a surreal psychiatric hospital,all the while being taunted by a tuxedo-wearing version of himself,who represents the critic in the song's lyrics. Lowe's head appears as a hanging lamp;his image was scanned by computer to generate the effect;whilst saturated colours were added in to give the video a nightmarish,unsettling quality.[14]
"Euroboy" is a dance track written by Tennant and Lowe[15] in the Eurodance mould of such bands as Cappella and Livin' Joy. The track includes Lowe in one of his rare lead-vocals performances,singing through a vocoder.[4] He claimed to have been unaware at the time of release that Euroboy was also the name of a softcore gay pornographic magazine.[16]
"Euroboy" later appeared on the US release of the album Disco 2,the B-side collection Alternative,and the 2001 two-disc re-release,Very:Further Listening 1992–1994. It was occasionally performed live on the Asian leg of the band's 1994 Discovery tour.[citation needed]
12Hamilton, James (3 September 1994). "Dj directory"(PDF). Music Week, in Record Mirror (Dance Update Supplemental Insert). p.11. Retrieved 19 April 2021.
↑"Pet Shop Boys interview". This Is Not Retro. March 2004. Retrieved 28 February 2025. CL – Did someone say that? NT – Someone definitely said that to us several times and so I just put them all in this lyric…
↑Staunton, Terry (29 May 1993). "'The Smiths You Can Dunce To'". New Musical Express. pp.28–30.
↑Heath, Chris (2020) [1993]. Pet Shop Boys versus America. London: William Heinemann. ISBN9781473575684.
↑Jennings, Dave (3 September 1994). "Singles". Melody Maker. p.44.
↑Savage, Jon (1995). Alternative (booklet). Pet Shop Boys. Parlophone Records. p.20. 7243 8 34353 2 6. Chris: Funnily enough, there is a soft porn mag called Euroboy. JS: Which of course you only realised after the title had been written? Chris: Obviously, yeah. Well… it's a very Euro-disco track.
↑Pet Shop Boys (1994). Yesterday, When I Was Mad (UK CD1 disc notes). Parlophone. CDRS 6386, 7243 8 81569 2 9.
↑Pet Shop Boys (1994). Yesterday, When I Was Mad (UK CD2 disc notes). Parlophone. CDR 6386, 7243 8 81570 2 5.
↑Pet Shop Boys (1994). Yesterday, When I Was Mad (UK 12-inch single vinyl disc). Parlophone. 12R 6386, 7243 8 81569 6 7.
↑Pet Shop Boys (1994). Yesterday, When I Was Mad (UK cassette single sleeve). Parlophone. TCR 6386, 7243 8 81569 4 3.
↑Pet Shop Boys (1994). Yesterday, When I Was Mad (European CD single disc notes). Parlophone. 7243 8 81633 2 3.
↑Pet Shop Boys (1994). Yesterday, When I Was Mad (US maxi-CD single disc notes). EMI Records USA. E2-58319, 7243-8-58319-2-8.
↑Pet Shop Boys (1994). Yesterday, When I Was Mad (US 2×12-inch single vinyl disc). EMI Records USA. VV-58319.
↑Pet Shop Boys (1994). Yesterday, When I Was Mad (Australian CD single liner notes). Parlophone. 8816732.
↑Pet Shop Boys (1994). Yesterday, When I Was Mad (Australian cassette single sleeve). Parlophone. 8816734.
↑Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin - levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1sted.). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. p.233. ISBN978-951-1-21053-5.
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