Pet Shop Boys Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant rolled out four new songs this week from their new EP Agenda, which is out today.
The fourth new sad and beautiful track and its lyric video arrived early Friday, called “The Forgotten Child”.
Earlier tracks included one about the poor quality of political leadership in the world (“Give Stupidity a Chance”), another about the vapidity of our online lives (“On Social Media”), and a third about the one percenters (“What Are We Going to Do About the Rich?”)
Said Tennant: “This is not satirical but it’s got a political theme. It’s sort of got two things going on. It’s kind of about a refugee who’s gone missing while fleeing for safety with her family. And there’s sort of a point being made that maybe we’ve all forgotten something about human values…That maybe there’s something being lost, and it’s summed up by the idea of the innocence of the child.”
The Forgotten Child (lyrics)
Where is the child, does anyone know?
She’s been forgotten, when did she go?
The times are brutal, borders are crossed
Where is the child, the child is lost
Where is the child? Someone must know
Who saw her last, why did she go?
We were under attack, reaching rock bottom
That was our focus, the child was forgotten
It’s an open secret, we spread and react
And if it’s not true then the rumors are fact
Although she may have been sometimes forgotten
There’s no suggestion she was misbegotten
She was our reason, our religion, our cause
Our best excuse for emergency laws
Invoked so often to explain and subdue
The forgotten child from whom we all grew
Child of our nation, our icon, our future
Gone from our records, I’m no computer
The times are brutal, borders are crossed
I think she took flight, and now we’re all lost
Where is the child?
Where is the child?
The times are brutal, borders are crossed
Where is the child, the child is lost
(Where is the child?
Where is the child?)
