The single edit is a re-recorded version and noticeably different from the one that was released on the debut album in June 1996. The album had originally charted at number 40 in the UK, but with the success of "Nancy Boy" it re-entered the charts in February 1997 at no. 5 and went gold in May.
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| Photo credit: Screenshots from the video, edit by Silke |
๐ฌ ๐ก๐๐ก๐๐ฌ ๐๐ข๐ฌ – ๐ข๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐ข๐ต http://bit.ly/39p2dxz ๐ต
The single was ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ฑ๐๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ฏ๐ ๐ฃ๐ต๐ถ๐น ๐ฉ๐ถ๐ป๐ฎ๐น๐น and recorded at Marcadet Studios in Paris in November 1996. It was put out in two totally different versions. The first one included “Nancy Boy (Radio edit)”, “Slackerbitch”, “Bigmouth strikes again” and a remix of “Hug Bubble” which was done by Brad Wood, who was the producer of the album version of “Nancy Boy”. CD 2 consisted of “Nancy Boy (Sex remix)”, “Eyesight to the blind”, “Swallow (Designer and U-Sheen Remix)” and “Miss Moneypenny”.The music clip for “Nancy Boy” was the first one that Placebo did with ๐๐ผ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฑ ๐๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ป๐ต๐ฎ๐น๐ด๐ต ๐ฎ๐ ๐๐ถ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ผ ๐ฑ๐ถ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ผ๐ฟ. It features the band performing the track in a colourful room with flashing lights, while the images of the band members are distorted. Drummer Steve Hewitt is portrayed throughout with a blurred face because he was still contractually obligated to another band on a different label. In some scenes there are various strange objects. In one part of the video you can see a mans head and shoulders area stuck to a table with spikes coming from it, and in another one a man is lying on a bed as a strange-looking woman uses a defibrillator on him. The clip also includes a fist with legs and a bathtub full of legs (see quote below).
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| Photo credit: Screenshots from the video, edit by Silke |
๐ข "It’s trying to capture that certain point of an evening, or a certain point of intoxication when all you can do, or want to do, is fuck. It’s a celebration, but it also pokes fun at drug-induced promiscuity and that experimantation for experimantation’s sake. I’ve also been called ‘Nancy Boy’ a thousand times, so it’s about me as well."
(Dazed & Confused, March 1997)
๐ข "The song also has a dig at people who think it's fashionable to be gay - guys who think that because 'some of my best friends are gay' that they are going to try it out because they are in a milieu where it's cool, but they haven't actually had the desire themselves. In the song, I'm questioning people's reasons for sleeping with someone of the same sex. In the same way that heroin is very hip today, being bisexual seems to be very chic."
(Melody Maker, January 1997)
๐ข "The relationship we have, you know, towards 'Nancy Boy' is very, very different to the relationship that everybody else has to it. To a lot of Placebo fans it’s a really, really important song and it’s kinda the way they discovered the band in 1996. They loved it so much they pushed it up to number 4 in the charts, which, you know, judging by its subject matter – transvestitism – we were extremely surprised. Now because it became such an identifying thing for Placebo, we had to bury it for like four years and we refused categorically to play it live. [...] And because of the break, that sort of four year vacation from 'Nancy Boy', it actually became fun to play again."
(Session at AOL, 2004)
๐ข “I’m not sure what the hell that song is about but something about it worked. I’d like to think it was the frenetic riffage rather than the lyrics, which I’m not particularly proud of.”
(Classic Rock, January 2005)
๐ข "Nancy Boy's success was a massive surprise for me. I still can't believe it, to be honest."
(Independent, August 21st 2009)
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| Photo credit: Screenshot from the video |
๐ข ”People have really skewed ideas when they start to censor things, like for the video of 'Nancy Boy' we have all these people in a bath of milk and at one point there's this massive splash and you see this huge kind of like come-shot sort of fly across the screen into somebody's mouth. And the Americans didn't even notice that. What they wanted, they wanted somebody's plastic bum taken out, you know what I mean, it's like they seem to miss the whole point and I think that's one of the beauties of Placebo, you know, it's that we manage to get these things across without people seeing them, without people noticing them. ”
(Brian, In conversation with Sally Stratton, August 1998)
Post by Silke
