Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
“Can You Forgive Her?” is the opening track to the Pet Shop Boys fifth studio album Very and was the first single released from it.
Told from the second person and in rhyming couplets, the midtempo synthpop song tells the story of a man unable to shake the memory of a same-sex tryst he had in his y...
[Verse 1]
Another night with open eyes
Too late to sleep, too soon to rise
You're short of breath, is it a heart attack?
Hot and feverish, you face the fact
[Pre-Chorus]
You're in love and it feels like shame
Because she's gone and made a fool of you in public again
You're in love and it feels like pain
Because you know there's too much truth in everything she claims
[Chorus]
So ask yourself now: Can you forgive her
If she wants you to?
Ask yourself: Can you even deliver
What she demands of you?
[Verse 2]
You drift into the strangest dreams
Of youthful follies and changing teams
Admit you're wrong, oh, no, not yet
Then you wake up and remember that you can't forget
[Pre-Chorus]
She's made you some kind of laughing stock
Because you dance to disco, and you don't like rock
She'd make fun of you and even in bed
Said she was gonna go and get herself a real man instead
[Chorus]
So ask yourself now: Can you forgive her
If she begs you to?
Ask yourself: Can you even deliver
What she demands of you?
[Post-Chorus]
Or do you want revenge?
But that's childish, so childish!
(But that's childish, so childish!)
[Verse 3]
Remember when you were more easily led
Behind the cricket pavilion and the bicycle shed
Trembling as your dreams came true
You looked right into those blue eyes and knew
[Pre-Chorus]
It was love, and now you can't pretend
You've forgotten all the promises of that first friend
It's bad enough, she knows how you feel
But she's not prepared to share you with the memory
[Chorus]
So ask yourself now: Can you forgive her
If she begs you to?
Ask yourself: Can you even deliver
What she demands of you?
Ask yourself now: Can you forgive her
If she begs you to?
And ask yourself: Can you even deliver
What she demands of you?
[Post-Chorus]
Or do you want revenge?
But that's childish, so childish!
Can You Forgive Her? was written by Chris Lowe & Neil Tennant.
Can You Forgive Her? was produced by Pet Shop Boys.
Pet Shop Boys released Can You Forgive Her? on Mon May 31 1993.
Yes! Featuring the same surreal imagery of dunces as the single artwork, a video directed by Howard Greenhalgh was released:
In One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem, lyricist Neil Tennant writes:
I was on holiday reading the Victorian novel Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope. A friend remarked that that the title sounded like a Pet Shop Boys song title, which inspired me to write this lyric about a man whose girlfriend ta...