You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk: Behind Pet Shop Boys’ Surprising Turn To Country Music

The song became ‘Nightlife’’s most successful single in the UK

The established formula suggests that, once an album’s lead single has been released, successive singles perform less well – especially where physical sales remain crucial, which was the case in markets such as the UK, where You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk was released on 3 January 2000.

• Pet Shop Boys: Behind One Of The Finest Pop Packages Of All Time
• Pet Shop Boys Album Covers: All 15 Studio Artworks, Ranked And Reviewed
• Best Pet Shop Boys Albums: All 15 Studio Albums, Ranked And Reviewed

Yet this song bucked that trend and, following the releases of I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Anymore (No.15 UK) and New York City Boy (No.14), it became the first Nightlife single to hit the Top 10. Issued on two CDs and as a limited 12” doublepack, it peaked at No.8 in the second chart of the new 2000s. No further singles would be taken from Nightlife, which meant that it would be a little more than two years before Pet Shop Boys released their next single, 2002’s Home And Dry.

The song might have ended up in Pet Shop Boys’ musical, ‘Closer To Heaven’

In the late 90s, Pet Shop Boys were working on their musical, Closer To Heaven (it would eventually open in London in 2001). Almost their entire back catalogue was reviewed for possible use in the production, including You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk.

“We tried to shoehorn this into the musical,” Tennant later said. “It created a character, the manager’s boyfriend, who’s always pissed – but it was shoehorned out again. We realised after a year or so that this wasn’t the way to do it.”

There were plans for another artist to cover the song

Feeling that You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk could be suitable cover material, Pet Shop Boys’ publishers were tasked with approaching other artists to record it. One of the best Pet Shop Boys songs, its country influences made it a natural opportunity for a singer such as Dolly Parton, but those plans didn’t develop and, to date, the song has yet to be covered, which is a surprise given its outstanding melody.

In truth, few artists dare cover Pet Shop Boys’ songs, but the duo has a habit of making other people’s tunes their own, such as Always On My Mind and Go West.

You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk inspired yet another classic PSB promo video

Pet Shop Boys pioneered innovative pop videos and, although the technique of speeding up a recording to create a slowed-down performance on film isn’t new – it was utilised for Kylie Minogue’s What Do I Have To Do, in 1990 – it is used to excellent effect on You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk.

Director Pedro Romhanyi, who was also behind the video for I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Anymore, shot this highlight in Pet Shop Boys’ revered video back catalogue in atmospheric monochrome.

The song has rarely been performed live

Although Britain’s most successful duo now regularly perform live, the end of the 90s was a period when concert performances were something of a rarity for Pet Shop Boys. As such, You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk didn’t become a setlist staple until Tennant and Lowe’s Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live tour, which finally started its lengthy run in May 2022, after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Buy Pet Shop Boys vinyl at the Dig! store.