Storytime: Allee Willis was originally brought in to do a portrait of the Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, for their fan club stationery. Along the way, she co-wrote one of their most iconic tracks with them: “What Have I Done to Deserve This?”
In December 1984, Allee flew to London to work on the portrait. At the time, “West End Girls” was a hit in Europe but wasn’t out in the States yet. While the band posed for her, Neil struck up a conversation about her career. During their chat, Neil realized her impressive background, “You’re not the A. Willis on those Earth, Wind & Fire records, are you?” Excited by her experience, Neil and Chris invited her to collaborate. Though they had never co-written with anyone before, she extended her stay, and the three set to work on what would become a timeless duet.
As Neil later recounted, “(Our manager) Tom Watkins said, ‘Why don’t you write a song with Allee?’ We’d never written a song with someone else in the same room.” Neil added, “There’s three bits of the song, one by Chris, one by me, and one by Allee Willis. Chris wrote the riff which starts the song and the music which is underneath ‘I bought you drinks, I brought you flowers,’ I wrote the verse, and Allee wrote, in my opinion, the best bit of the song, the ‘since you went away…’ bit.”
Allee also brought her Linn Drum machine chips (“a very big deal at the time,” as she wrote), which helped define the song’s feel. Together, they crafted a track with distinct, incongruent sections that somehow fit together perfectly.
The song peaked at number 2 in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the fourth top ten hit for the Pet Shop Boys and the biggest hit of Dusty Springfield’s career in the United States. It also reached number one on the Irish singles chart, marking the Pet Shop Boys’ second number-one hit there in just six weeks. In the UK, it remains their fourth most streamed song of all time.
The Pet Shop Boys were interviewed for “The World According to Allee Willis,” now available to watch at home through Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google, and other on-demand services. Please give it a watch!
Allee sang on the song’s demo. Listen to it here.
