It's a Sin

Tennant and Lowe wrote it in 1982 at Ray Roberts' studio in Camden. It began when Lowe played a piece of music that sounded to Tennant like a hymn. The lyric draws on his Catholic schooling at St Cuthbert's Grammar School in Newcastle, where he was taught that everything was a sin. Tennant said it took about 15 minutes to write and was meant as a camp joke. In the coda he recites part of the Confiteor in Latin. He has also called it at heart a heavy metal record, pointing to a link between hi-NRG and heavy metal.

Julian Mendelsohn produced the first version. He and the duo recorded background sounds at the Brompton Oratory, a Catholic church in London, and a sung Mass at Westminster Cathedral that happened to be in C minor, the song's key. Its amen response is heard at the end. Andy Richards made the choir sound that opens the track on a Fairlight, and the production is bookended by a sample of a NASA countdown. The duo were not satisfied with the result, particularly the vocals, so they asked Stephen Hague to make another mix, and his version became the single and the album track. Mendelsohn thought his own had better sound and dynamics but accepted that the track benefited from fresh ears.

Release

Released on 15 June 1987 as the lead single from Actually, it spent three weeks at number one in Britain and reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also number one in more than 15 other countries. Derek Jarman directed the video, their first work together, in which Tennant is arrested by an inquisition with Lowe as his jailer and Ron Moody as the judge.

The song caused a row. The Newcastle Evening Chronicle ran a front-page article calling it a direct attack on the religious values preached at the school, and the DJ Jonathan King accused the duo in The Sun of copying Cat Stevens's Wild World. The duo sued and won damages, which went to a trust that supports the study of sexually transmitted diseases. Alexis Petridis of the Guardian wrote that the song emerged during a hideous religious backlash against gay people, and that it lent its title to a television drama by Russell T Davies.

Live

Pet Shop Boys played it at a benefit against Section 28 at the Piccadilly Theatre on 5 June 1988. With West End Girls it is one of only two songs played on every tour. At some concerts they have joined it to Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive.