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It's a Sin
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It's a Sin
"It's a Sin" (also stylised "It's a sin.") is a song by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys from their second studio album, Actually (1987). Written by Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant, the song was released on 15 June 1987 as the album's lead single. It became the duo's second number-one single on the UK singles chart, spending three weeks atop the chart. Additionally, the single topped the charts in over 15 other countries, including Austria, Denmark, Finland, West Germany, Ireland, Israel, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Zimbabwe, while reaching number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100. It remains one of Pet Shop Boys' most popular songs with 40 million streams in the UK.
"It's a Sin" was written in 1982 at Ray Roberts' studio in Camden, where Lowe and Tennant worked on songs in their early years. Their original demo was one of the songs Tennant brought to his meeting with New York record producer Bobby Orlando. Pet Shop Boys made another demo with Orlando in 1984, but it was never released. The song's basic structure from the 1984 demo remained intact in the 1987 version, although the released production is far more dramatic.
Tennant came up with the phrase "It's a sin" when he heard Lowe play a piece of music that sounded to him like a hymn. In the lyrics, he describes some impressions he took from his time at the Catholic St Cuthbert's Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne, in particular the teaching that sex is a sin except within marriage for the purpose of procreation. Tennant has said that the song was not intended to be serious:
People took it really seriously; the song was written in about 15 minutes, and was intended as a camp joke and it wasn't something I consciously took very seriously—sometimes I wonder if there was more to it than I thought at the time—but the local parish priest in Newcastle delivered a sermon on it, and reflected on how the Church changed from the promise of a ghastly hell to the message of love.
In the coda, Tennant recites a part of the Confiteor in Latin, which translated into English is "I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, act and omission, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault".
"It's a Sin" is in the key of C minor; the music for the bridge ("Father forgive me...") was taken from another song of theirs written in E-flat minor. In Tennant's words, "'It's a Sin', at its heart, is a heavy metal record. There is a huge link between hi-NRG music and heavy metal: the urgency, the chords, the slightly histrionic melody." The dramatic, overblown production style of the song, loaded with synthesizers, orchestra hits and bookended by a non sequitur sample of a NASA countdown, has come to exemplify the most theatrical extremes of the Pet Shop Boys' musical style.
Julian Mendelsohn was the primary producer of "It's a Sin". He had been selected to co-produce Actually based on his work on the previous Pet Shop Boys single "Suburbia".
To add ambience to the track, Mendelsohn went with the duo to Brompton Oratory, a Catholic church in London, to record background sounds that can be heard during the bridge. At Westminster Cathedral, they recorded a sung Mass that happened to be in the right key, C minor; the amen response is heard at the end of the song. Keyboard programmer Andy Richards used a Fairlight to create the choir sound that opens the track.
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It's a Sin
"It's a Sin" (also stylised "It's a sin.") is a song by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys from their second studio album, Actually (1987). Written by Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant, the song was released on 15 June 1987 as the album's lead single. It became the duo's second number-one single on the UK singles chart, spending three weeks atop the chart. Additionally, the single topped the charts in over 15 other countries, including Austria, Denmark, Finland, West Germany, Ireland, Israel, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Zimbabwe, while reaching number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100. It remains one of Pet Shop Boys' most popular songs with 40 million streams in the UK.
"It's a Sin" was written in 1982 at Ray Roberts' studio in Camden, where Lowe and Tennant worked on songs in their early years. Their original demo was one of the songs Tennant brought to his meeting with New York record producer Bobby Orlando. Pet Shop Boys made another demo with Orlando in 1984, but it was never released. The song's basic structure from the 1984 demo remained intact in the 1987 version, although the released production is far more dramatic.
Tennant came up with the phrase "It's a sin" when he heard Lowe play a piece of music that sounded to him like a hymn. In the lyrics, he describes some impressions he took from his time at the Catholic St Cuthbert's Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne, in particular the teaching that sex is a sin except within marriage for the purpose of procreation. Tennant has said that the song was not intended to be serious:
People took it really seriously; the song was written in about 15 minutes, and was intended as a camp joke and it wasn't something I consciously took very seriously—sometimes I wonder if there was more to it than I thought at the time—but the local parish priest in Newcastle delivered a sermon on it, and reflected on how the Church changed from the promise of a ghastly hell to the message of love.
In the coda, Tennant recites a part of the Confiteor in Latin, which translated into English is "I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, act and omission, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault".
"It's a Sin" is in the key of C minor; the music for the bridge ("Father forgive me...") was taken from another song of theirs written in E-flat minor. In Tennant's words, "'It's a Sin', at its heart, is a heavy metal record. There is a huge link between hi-NRG music and heavy metal: the urgency, the chords, the slightly histrionic melody." The dramatic, overblown production style of the song, loaded with synthesizers, orchestra hits and bookended by a non sequitur sample of a NASA countdown, has come to exemplify the most theatrical extremes of the Pet Shop Boys' musical style.
Julian Mendelsohn was the primary producer of "It's a Sin". He had been selected to co-produce Actually based on his work on the previous Pet Shop Boys single "Suburbia".
To add ambience to the track, Mendelsohn went with the duo to Brompton Oratory, a Catholic church in London, to record background sounds that can be heard during the bridge. At Westminster Cathedral, they recorded a sung Mass that happened to be in the right key, C minor; the amen response is heard at the end of the song. Keyboard programmer Andy Richards used a Fairlight to create the choir sound that opens the track.