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| “Somewhere”,
a cover version of the Bernstein/Sondheim song, was released on June 1997
as a standalone single to promote a series of live shows at London’s Savoy
Theatre, a small tour promoting songs from their last album “Bilingual.
The artwork was designed by Mark Farrow reflecting the silver interior
design of the Savoy Theatre by using silvery paper with different printing
techniques which result on lots of nice different colours; Farrow used
some portrait photos of Neil and Chris taken by Andy Earl, first seen
on the Bilingual’s interview CD “Talk” and also created a typeface that
was used on everything connected with the show: the neon sign outside
the theatre, the concert programme, and the various sleeves of the single.
The promotional CD released in the UK was printed in a double cardboard
sleeve, silver on the outside with “Pet Shop Boys” on the front and “Somewhere”
on the back and metallic blue on the inside with credits and trackless
on white and silver type and included the ‘Single’ and ‘Orchestral’ versions
of “Somewhere” and the B Side “The view from your balcony”. |
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| The
CD cases were designed so that the CDs themselves were exposed and visible
from the front. Farrow wanted to do something different with them and
strip it back as far as possible. The information and photography were
confined to either side of the CD spine; Chris appearing on one CD; Neil
on the other. CD Part 1 included the usage of blue, while CD Part 2 used
yellow for some of the type and the disc itself which was printed with
transparent ink so that you got the metallic coming through. The European
releases didn’t follow the same design for transparent cases and used
half photo of each, Neil & Chris for each CD and filled the rest of the
cover with grey/silver colour and used blue and yellow for type and disc
colouring. CD 1 included “Somewhere (Single Version)”, the B Side “The
view from your balcony”, “Somewhere (Fortright Vocal Mix) and one remix
of “To step aside”, a song included on “Bilingual” but never released
as a single; CD 2 included three more versions of “Somewhere”: ‘Orchestral
Version’, ‘Trouser Enthusiasts Mix’ & ‘Fortright Dub’ and the B Side “Disco
Potential”. |
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| There
were no other commercial releases of “Somewhere” within the UK,
just a double 12” Promo titled “Somewhere - Remixed” with a totally new
cover sleeve with “psb” on front and back in the same typography of the
other formats but in green and grey colours over a white background and
very tiny type with all the credits and track listing spread on the sleeves.
This 2x12” promo included the three remixes of “Somewhere” also available
on the CDs and three remixes of “To step aside”. For the international
releases there was one promotional CD edited in France with a complete
different cover with no similarities to the overall design of the single
in yellow background with white and blue type and including a edited version
of the single without the ‘orchestral-intro’. |
| The
Japanese CD Single included seven versions of “Somewhere” including the
‘Extended Mix’ previously unavailable and two remixes by Fortright (Vocal
Version & Club Mix) that are actually the same, the cover sleeve was inspired
in the UK 2x12” promo by using the “psb” text with the title “Pet Shop
Boy Somewhere - Seven Versions” and adding small photos of Neil & Chris
inside the squares created by the letters ‘p’ and ‘b’. The North American
version of the single used the same design as the European CDs for the
12” Single with Chris on the front and Neil on the back of the sleeve
while the CD put both images together on the front, the track listing
of this release was quite different to the UK version because “To step
aside” was included as a Double A-Side of “Se a vida é” single some months
before and the record company decided to merge the last two single of
the band: “A red letter day” with “Somewhere” but using this last one
design; both the commercial and promo 2x12” Singles included four remixes
of each song while the CD included just two of each song and the B Sides
“The view from you balcony” and “Delusions of Grandeur”. |
