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.
𝗡𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗬 𝗕𝗢𝗬 – 𝗢𝗙𝗙𝗜𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟 𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗢
🎵 http://bit.ly/39p2dxz 🎵
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| Photo credit: Screenshots from the video, edit by Silke |
The music clip for “Nancy Boy” was the first one that Placebo did with Howard Greenhalgh as video director. 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).
📌 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗢 📌
📢 ”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)
The single version of “Nancy Boy“ was produced by Phil Vinall 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 version of the song that was released on Placebo's debut album was produced by Brad Wood and recorded in Dublin, Ireland.
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| Screenshot from Nancy Boy |
📹 𝗡𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗬 𝗕𝗢𝗬 – 𝗔𝗥𝗘𝗔𝟰 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟬
https://bit.ly/3E5bZnC
📌 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 “𝗡𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗬 𝗕𝗢𝗬“ 📌
📢 “After doing that song on the ‘White Room’ I thought ‘Jesus Christ. I’ve just gone on TV and sung, “What a beautiful ass!”
(Melody Maker, September 1996)
📢 "Sonically we tried to capture a sort of drug-induced sexual rush. It's got a rising car sound which was meant to reproduce the first rushes of E, and it's obvious that the character is drug-crazed and sex-crazed at that moment. There are times in your life that you are really so far off your head that all you want to do is f*ck."
(Melody Maker, January 1997)
📢 "It's a celebration and a slag of that kind of behaviour at the same time. It doesn't promote promiscuity but it doesn't judge it either. It pokes fun at classic macho phrases - 'I'd f*ck her with a paper bag on my head', 'don't look at the mantelpiece while you're poking the fire', et cetera. And words like queer and fag. When you appropriate them for yourself, they start to get attached with your own power.“
(Melody Maker, January 1997)
📢 "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)
📢 "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)
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| Screenshot from Nancy Boy |
📹 𝗡𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗬 𝗕𝗢𝗬 – 𝗟𝗢𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗬 𝗙𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗔𝗟 𝟭𝟵𝟵𝟲
https://bit.ly/3cQvswp
📢 "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)
📢 “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)
📢 "Nancy Boy's success was a massive surprise for me. I still can't believe it, to be honest."
(Independent, August 21st 2009)
𝘋𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 "𝘕𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘺" 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦?
📢 “Y'know, I really wish I could say yes, but I'm still not even sure what that song is about. It seems to be about pansexual hedonism, and letting it all hang out. I'm not really aware of what it means to other people, but I do remember being on tour while it was coming out. We were in an indie club in Scotland after a show, and the place was packed when they put "Nancy Boy" on and it cleared the dancefloor. I turned around to Stefan and said, "I think we're fucked!" And he said, "No, they just don't understand." I was convinced it would be ignored and become this flop. So I was very, very surprised when I was proven wrong and it went to Top 5“.
(“Rank your records“, Noisy, October 13th 2016)
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| Screenshot from Nancy Boy |
(Loudersoundcom, December 7th 2016)
📢 “I have a very ambivalent relationship with 'Nancy Boy'. I was still learning how to write songs, so I consider it one of my more immature ones. At one point we got so sick of it that we stopped playing it for five years. But now I can relate to it in terms of what it is. Emotionally for me it’s still bothersome, but I want to be at peace with it. However, it opened so many doors for us. It went to number four in the chart, got us on Top Of The Pops and a tour with David Bowie. And I wrote it before we’d even signed a record deal. It was very instrumental in us becoming successful. I just wish I liked it better.”
(Loudersoundcom, December 7th 2016)
Post by Silke
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