Nothing Has Been Proved by Pet Shop Boys (featuring Dusty Springfield)

Album: Reputation (1989)

Charted: 16

License This Song

lyrics

artistfacts

Songfacts®:

Released on Dusty Springfield's 1989 album Reputation, "Nothing Has Been Proved" was written by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of The Pet Shop Boys. It was produced by Tennant, Lowe, and Julian Mendelsohn for the soundtrack of the 1989 film Scandal, starring Joanne Whalley and Bridget Fonda.

The lyrics of the song, like the film itself, address the sex scandal that is known in Great Britain as The Profumo Affair. In 1962, two beautiful young showgirls, Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, had affairs with important men in the British government, encouraged by their mentor, a social-climbing doctor named Stephen Ward. Keeler wound up having affairs simultaneously with John Profumo, the British Secretary of War, and Yevgeny Ivanov, an attaché with the Soviet Union's British Embassy. When this became public in 1963, it led to fears that British national security had been compromised. This captured the public's attention, like the Monica Lewinsky scandal did in the United States in 1998. The end result of this scandal was the resignation of both Profumo and Prime Minister Harold MacMillan. >>>
Suggestion credit:
Mike - Santa Barbara, CA
This song was the second of three Dusty Springfield collaborations with the Pet Shop Boys, who were big fans of the British singer. Their first was the 1987 hit "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" and the third was "In Private," which was also written for Scandal but not used in the film. Like "Nothing Has Been Proved," it also deals with The Profumo Affair and appears on Springfield's album Reputation.
Pet Shop Boys released their own version on their 2006 live album Concrete.
The voice in the background whispering "It's a scandal, such a scandal," is Neil Tennant.

Comments: 3

Daniel from Over ThereThe line "Please Please Me's Number One" is sung various times throughout the song.
During the 1960s the UK had no "Single Recognised" Pop Music Chart. At the time there was the New Musical Express Chart, the Melody Maker Chart, the Disc Chart, the Pop Weekly Chart, and the BBC's Pick Of The Pops Chart. The Beatles scored their First Ever Number One Single, when their song 'Please Please Me' simultaneously topped all the charts listed above. For over 20 years, the one thing everybody knew about the Beatles was that their First Number One was 'Please Please Me'.

But, there was another, almost completely unknown Chart at the same time, the Record Retailer Chart. This used a points-based system to add up "points" from about 30 independent Record shops across the Greater London area. On the Record Retailer Chart, Please Please Me only reached Number Two. But nobody cared about that in 1963, mostly because over 99 per cent of people had never even heard of the Record Retailer.

In 1977 the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles was released. A Joel Whitburn-style Chart Book, listing every British Chart Single ever. Extremely controversially, and for reasons that have never been adequately explained, the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles chose to utilise the Record Retailer Chart for the period from March 1960 until February 1969. As such, the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles listed Please Please Me as having peaked at the Number 2 position, and having never reached Number 1. As time went on, the influence of the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles grew, to the point where today it is "officially recognised" that Please Please Me peaked at Number 2.

However, Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe and Dusty Springfield all lived through 1963, and all remember the reality of the time. Hence the lyric "Please Please Me's Number One". The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles(and the later "Official Charts Company") have tried to rewrite actual history, but Please Please Me by The Beatles is a legitimate and true UK Number One Hit.
Steve from Tenby, UkPet Shop Boys appeared with Dusty at the Brit Awards in 1987 and performed this song. Chris was dressed as a deep-sea fisherman with a rubber hat, coat and trousers.
Emma from London, EnglandHi,

It's Neil Tennant, not Nick!

see more comments

More Songfacts:

VoodooGodsmack

The line, "I feel the snakebite enter my veins," led many to believe the Godsmack song "Voodoo" is about drugs, but it's really about Wiccan ritual, inspired in part by the Wes Craven movie The Serpent and the Rainbow.

Raspberry BeretPrince

The UK band The Lightning Seeds of "Pure" fame got their name from a misheard line in Prince's "Raspberry Beret," mistaking "thunder drowns out what the lightning sees" for "thunder drowns out the lightning seeds."

Invisible TouchGenesis

The Genesis song "Invisible Touch" was inspired by the Prince-written Sheila E. track "The Glamorous Life."

More Than a FeelingBoston

Boston leader Tom Scholz went back to his job at Polaroid after releasing the group's debut album. When his co-workers kept coming by to tell him "More Than A Feeling" was playing on the radio, he knew it was time to quit his day job.

Someone Like YouAdele

Adele's "Someone Like You" is the first song with just piano and voice to hit #1 in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, which started in 1958.

The Battle Hymn of the RepublicTraditional

John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath got its title from a line in "The Battle Hymn of the Republic": "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored."