"Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)" is a song by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys. The song is a medley of U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", a 1967 song by Frankie Valli, though in an arrangement informed by the 1982 disco version of the song by the Boys Town Gang rather than the original. The song accompanied "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?", the third single from their fourth studio album, Behaviour (1990), as a double A-side in the United Kingdom (both singles were released separately in the United States). Released in March 1991 by Parlophone, the song became the duo's 15th consecutive top-20 entry in the UK, peaking at number four on the UK Singles Chart.

Background and content

Chris Lowe had the idea for the unusual mashup, realising that "you could sing the one going into the other", while recording "I'm Not Scared" with Patsy Kensit for her band, Eighth Wonder. Lowe and Neil Tennant then noticed that "the guitar on U2's record sounded like a sequencer". The duo intended to record it with Eighth Wonder as a follow-up to "I'm Not Scared"; instead, they recorded it themselves several years later, as they "needed a big hit. It was absolutely shameless." Having "turn[ed] a mythic rock song into a stomping disco record", the duo considered recording a full EP of hi-NRG covers of rock songs, including "Stairway to Heaven". The Pet Shop Boys version differs significantly from that of U2 in its musical arrangement. In contrast to the U2 version's instrumental build-up, the Pet Shop Boys version opens abruptly with synthesized and sampled noises and a drum machine. The musical climax of the song is also changed in other elements; a background vocal sample of "burning down love" is played right at the start, and synthesised horns erupt with even higher notes immediately following each chorus. Tennant performs the lyrics with no vocal exertion or stresses, in contrast to Bono's performance. In addition, at the transition between "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", Tennant sings the two lines one after the other, with no change in pitch, demonstrating the similarities in the two songs. The single's other A-side, "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?", criticises the insincere humanitarian messages of a number of pop stars during the 1980s and the institutionalization of rock and roll. The band noted that "one song is about rock stars so to have a U2 song with it serves as a further comment."

Reception and legacy

Following the release of the single, U2 joked, "What have we done to deserve this?" Tennant mentioned to The People in 2002 that he had "managed at long last to patch things up with Bono" after meeting him at one of Elton John's homes in the south of France. James Brown from NME said, "Here they shake out the old U2 blanket and give it a good beating, splashing in some music hall camp, and a finale of fuzzy hard rock guitar. This is cool, happy music, no-one else take the piss quite so shockingly." Nick Duerden from Record Mirror wrote, "A bizarre mixture of two completely different songs, on paper it reads like a painful nightmare. But on record, it gels rather well. Neil and Chris' Hi-NRG treatment of both tracks run ridiculously smoothly with added eloquence, forcing even the Boys' detractors to give credit where it's due. Carry on camping."

Live performances and recordings

To date, the Pet Shop Boys have performed the song live on six of their tours. The song was included in the main set list for 1991's Performance Tour; a recording from the Birmingham NEC in June 1991 was released on the video Performance. The VHS edition of the concert omitted the "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" section due to a publishing issue, but the complete soundtrack was later restored to the DVD version in 2004. The song was performed at some shows of the 1994 Discovery tour, though not the show in Rio de Janeiro released on Discovery: Live in Rio 1994. It also appeared on the 2002 Release Tour, the 2004 summer/fall shows and the 2006 Fundamental Tour, of which a performance filmed in Mexico City on 14 November was included on the 2007 DVD Cubism. Most recently, it is performed on the 2022–23 Dreamworld Tour.

Track listings

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Release history