The Meaning Behind Pretenders’ “Talk of the Town”

Some songs have a chord that is so striking and beautiful that you listen to the tune over and over, just so that you can hear it. “Talk of the Town,” the first single that the Pretenders released after the phenomenal success of their 1979 self-titled debut album, has a chord like that. Chrissie Hynde knew it, too. She was playing around with a chord that she really liked, and so she played it for her bandmate, lead guitarist James Honeyman-Scott. He told Hynde it was a “Beatles chord.” Hynde then wrote “Talk of the Town,” building the whole song around it. Let’s dig deeper and figure out the meaning behind Pretenders’ “Talk of the Town.”

The melancholy chord, which is actually B7, begins each verse in “Talk of the Town,” and it sets the tone for Hynde’s song about pining for someone who she only knew from a distance. Hynde’s lyrics don’t give us many clues as to whom she is singing to, but 19 years after writing the song, she identified the person who inspired her to write this gorgeous hit.

Who Was the Talk of the Town?

Many presumed that Hynde wrote “Talk of the Town” about Kinks frontman Ray Davies. It was a reasonable assumption, especially since Hynde and Davies later became a couple and had a daughter. Though it was an educated guess, it was also wrong. On a 1999 episode of BBC’s Songwriters’ Circle, Hynde divulged that she wrote the song about “this kid who used to stand outside the soundchecks on our first tour.” She said that she never spoke to him, because she “never had anything to say to him.” Hynde added, “In the unlikely event that you’re watching this, I did think about you after that.”

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What Hynde didn’t explain was how much of “Talk of the Town” was about the “kid.” Was the entire song about her feelings for someone she saw from afar but never talked to, or was that person merely the initial inspiration for lyrics that ultimately were fictional or about someone else? If the song is literally about the fan at the soundchecks, then its opening lines suggest that Hynde’s thoughts about him weren’t just passing.

It’s such a drag to want something sometime
One thing leads to another, I know
Was a time I wanted you for mine
Nobody knew

With the knowledge of who inspired the song, we can now understand the next line: You arrived like a day, passed like a cloud. It’s about someone who popped in and out of Hynde’s life—namely, at soundchecks.

People Are Strange

The first lines of the second verse also make more sense once you know about the song’s inspiration. While we can speculate as to whether Hynde actually had romantic feelings for her soundcheck visitor, it’s highly plausible she was curious about his feelings and life circumstances. It’s also believable that she chided herself for wondering.

It’s not my place to know what you feel
I’d like to know but why should I?
Who were you then? Who are you now?
Common laborer by night, by day, highbrow 

In the bridge, Hynde reiterates her longing, singing Maybe tomorrow, maybe someday. However, the section ends with a mysterious line: You’ve changed your place in this world. Has he changed his place in Hynde’s world by being someone she thinks about? Or has he changed his place in the larger world for reasons that Hynde chooses not to explain?

The final verse hints that Hynde may have extrapolated the story beyond the circumstances of the actual lives of the song’s two characters.

Oh, but it’s hard to live by the rules
I never could and still never do
The rules and such never bothered you
You call the shots and they follow

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A Conundrum Wrapped in an Enigma Sandwiched Between…

If Hynde never talked to him, then how would she know how he felt about rules, or which “shots” he called? The verse ends as enigmatically as it begins, as Hynde leaves us with a question that feels more like a riddle.

I watch you still from a distance, then go
Back to my room, you’ll never know
I want you, I want you, but now
Who’s the talk of the town?

The song, or at least the title, has a second inspiration. Talk of the Town was the name of a London nightclub that Hynde was paying homage to.

The Impact of “Talk of the Town”

“Talk of the Town” was originally released as a stand-alone single, nearly a year before it would appear on the Pretenders’ Extended Play EP in March 1981. More than four months after that, the song was released as a part of the Pretenders II album. The single did not chart in the U.S., but it was in rotation on album-oriented rock stations, and it peaked at No. 8 on the U.K. singles chart. The video for “Talk of the Town” is the fourth most-viewed official video on the Pretenders’ YouTube channel. Pretenders II was the second of three Top 10 albums for the band, reaching No. 10 on the Billboard 200.

The song was also featured on the soundtrack for the 1980 film, Times Square. The double album reached No. 37 on the Billboard 200. Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson gave “Talk of the Town” a shout-out on the band’s 1998 hit, “Special.” In the song’s outro, Manson repeats the line, We were the talk of the town, while also borrowing the vocal melody from the Pretenders’ original.

Hynde had already established herself as a great songwriter on the Pretenders’ first album, but with “Talk of the Town,” she set the bar even higher. It was a genius move to write a melancholy, lonely song around the “Beatles chord,” and Hynde delivered the complete package, with beautiful chord transitions, wistful lyrics, and one of the most touching vocal performances of her storied career.

Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns/Getty Images

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