"Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" is a song by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys from their debut studio album, Please (1986). It was released as a single in 1985 and re-recorded and reissued in 1986, gaining greater popularity in both the United Kingdom and United States with its second release, reaching number 11 on the UK Singles Chart and number 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100. After a Super Bowl ad in February 2021, featuring the song, it re-entered the charts claiming the Billboard Dance/Electronic Digital Songs No. 1 spot on 27 February, 2021, among others.
Background
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".
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 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 for the duo's debut album, Please, was mixed with reprogramming done by Hague and re-recorded vocals from Tennant. The second release of "Opportunities", following the album's release, resulted in better chart performance. It is 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 number 10, and just missing out (number 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.
Composition
The lyrics depict, 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 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 song, he says, is that "the people in it are not going to make any money".
The lyrics' meaning 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 for many, to the band's chagrin since often their more-sincere songs are ignored as a result.
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.
Release
12-inch remixes for the 1985 release were produced by Ron Dean Miller of Nuance, while those for the 1986 release were produced by noted 1980s producer Shep Pettibone. Some of Miller's overdubs went on to be incorporated into the 1986 single version. The 1986 7" single version, which reached #11 UK and #10 US, bears the following production credit: "Original Production by J.J. Jeczalik & Nicholas Froome; New York overdubs by Ron Dean Miller; Remix and Additional Production by Stephen Hague."