Opportunities

"Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" is a song by UK duo Pet Shop Boys, released as a single in 1985 and then in 1986, gaining greater popularity in both the United Kingdom and United States with its second release, reaching number 11 in the UK Singles Chart and number 10 in the US Billboard Hot 100.

The song's indirect attack on its subject matter has come to exemplify the Pet Shop Boys as ironists in their songwriting.

The song was written during the Pet Shop Boys' formative years, in 1983. According to Neil Tennant, the main lyrical concept came while in a recording studio in Camden Town when Chris Lowe asked him to make up a lyric based around the line "Let's make lots of money". Tennant has said that he was somewhat inspired by the relationship between the characters of Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy.

The first version of the song, recorded with the duo's first producer, Bobby Orlando, was not released; upon signing with record label Parlophone, they re-recorded the song with J. J. Jeczalik (of Art of Noise) and Nicholas Froome.

The original single release charted low at number 116 in the UK, to be exceedingly outdone by the number one spectacle of the second release of "West End Girls" in multiple countries. With producer Stephen Hague still on board from that release, a new single version and a version for the duo's debut album, Please, were mixed. The second release of "Opportunities", following the album's release, resulted in better chart performance. It is currently the only single from the band to chart higher in the US than the UK, becoming the duo's second Top 10 single in the US, peaking at #10, and just missing out (#11) in the UK. In Australia, the first version was the one to chart (although outside the Top 40).

Please also included a brief, cacophonic track titled "Opportunities (Reprise)", which was the original middle section to the song proper before it was edited out.

The lyric depicts, in Tennant's words, "two losers". The song is written from the perspective of a man who describes himself as being intellectual and educated. The lyrics are addressed towards another character, identified as having "looks" and "brawn", and who is invited to join the song's protagonist in a scheme to "make lots of money".

Tennant has made it clear, however, that the schemes are doomed to failure. The protagonist's claimed accreditations, a PhD in mathematics from the Sorbonne and knowledge of computer programming, are conceited fabrications. The punchline of the "joke" of the song, he says, is that "the people in it are not going to make any money". The band have attributed the cynicism of the song, in part, to the punk rock attitudes of the period.

The meaning of the lyric is taken at face value by some listeners, and this subsequent interpretation of the song as a materialistic anthem receives mixed reactions. The satirical interpretation, on the other hand, has cemented the Pet Shop Boys' reputation as ironists to many, to the chagrin of the band as the result is often their more sincere songs being ignored.

A notable change between the original and re-recorded versions of "Opportunities" is the omission of the spoken outro "All the love that we had / And the love that we hide / Who will bury us / When we die?" According to Tennant, the lyrics were removed from the second version of the song as the duo feared the passage would be construed as "too pretentious". The first two lines of the outro, however, are sung within the lyrics of "Why Don't We Live Together?" from the Please album. The original single version of "Opportunities" was unavailable on compact disc until the 1998 U.S.-only Essential compilation album, and was subsequently published on compact disc in the U.K., in a longer edit of the mix, on the 2-disc expanded 2001 remaster of Please.