Favourite lyricist: Neil Tennant (Pet Shop Boys)

The more I listened to Pet Shop Boys initially, the more I started to pay more attention to the lyrics of their songs and became convinced that Neil Tennant must be one of the most criminally overlooked lyricists of recent times. I adore their music in general of course, but its Neil's brilliant lyrics that just is the icing on the cake. He has a brilliant ability of being able to write lyrics about a range of feelings that you can connect with and an even better ability to do lyrics based on possibly cliched or overdone themes and do them in his own unique way. Sometimes he can be positively chilling too. I challenge anyone to listen to Only The Wind, which is about domestic violence but seen through the eyes of the person committing the abuse and then tell me he isn't incredibly overlooked. Some may say its odd that I seem to love the lyrics so much written by a man who is 40 years older than me with a different sexuality. I can't explain it really, but a lot of the experiences he writes about in songs are rather similar to that of my own. A perfect example is the whole theme of rejecting school and not wanting to conform with peers are doing that is the basis for a number of songs. Personally I think its a sign of how good his lyrics are, I mean if someone like me: a 17 year old hetrosexual female can identify with lyrics he wrote before I was even born (In some cases its a decade beforehand) then he must have a certain degree of timelessness in his lyrics then. I'm not saying he is the best lyricist ever because lyrics like music in general is highly subjective, and we all respond and connect with different things in different ways because we're all unique. Having said that, using this same personal connection as criteria, then I think its safe to say I don't connect with other lyricists as much I connect with Neil Tennant. Trying to post my favorite lines would be too hard but I think the whole Behaviour album just sums up why I love his lyrics (and the man himself) so much and why he remains one of my biggest inspirations.