"Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" is a song by UK synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys, released as a single in 1985 and then in 1986, gaining greater popularity in both the UK and U.S. with its second release.

Written as a satire of Thatcherism and its embodiment in conspicuous consumption and yuppies in the United Kingdom during the 1980s, the song's indirect attack on its subject matter has come to exemplify the Pet Shop Boys as ironists in their songwriting.

History

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".[1] 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.[2]

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. Jecazlik (of Art of Noise) and Nicholas Froome.

The original single release charted lowly 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 and is one of the few Pet Shop Boys songs still receiving radio airplay to date.

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