The song was concerned with the idea of growing up and how people's perceptions and values change as they grow older. The title originated from a Japanese review that accused the duo of being boring, in reference to their "famously deadpan presentation". The phrase reminded Neil Tennant of a 1922 quotation by Zelda Fitzgerald, "she refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring", which had been paraphrased on a party invitation from his friend Christopher Dowell in the 1970s. As teenagers in Newcastle, they had agreed that they wouldn't settle for boring lives.
In a 1993 interview, Tennant described "Being Boring" as "one of the best songs that we've written", and said that "For me it is a personal song because it's about a friend of mine who died of AIDS, and so it's about our lives when we were teenagers and how we moved to London, and I suppose me becoming successful and him becoming ill".
"Being Boring" was written between 1989 and 1990. The track was originally demoed in a studio in West Glasgow, where the music for "My October Symphony", "The End of the World" and the unreleased "Love and War" were also written. Chris Lowe decided that the music should emulate Stock Aitken Waterman by going up a semitone into the chorus, to give it an uplifting feeling. The verse ends on G and goes up to A-flat instead of C for the chorus.
The lyrics for the first verse, about the 1920s quote on the party invitation, and the second verse, about leaving Newcastle for London in the 1970s, had materialised by that point. Tennant wrote the final verse in 1990, in a rented room in Munich, wishing that his friend was still there. Tennant has called "Being Boring" an autobiographical elegy for his friend, Dowell, who died in 1989.
The demo was presented to producer Harold Faltermeyer at Red Deer Studios, Munich, whose expertise in analog synthesizers came to the forefront in the song's production. The basis of the song was laid with Roland TR-808 and Roland TR-909 drum machines, plus a Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer. Synthesizers used included a Roland Jupiter-8 (which makes up the layered textures in the introduction and the melody line throughout), an Oberheim OB-8 (which was blended with the Jupiter-8 for the main melody) and a Synclavier (for the harp glissandos).
Further work was done at Sarm West Studios in London with Julian Mendelsohn; the "wakka-wakka" guitar line by J.J. Belle (influenced by Isaac Hayes's Theme from Shaft (1971)) was recorded there, among a few other parts.
"Being Boring" debuted at number 36 and peaked at number 20 the following week. At the time, it was the least successful Pet Shop Boys single in the period since "West End Girls" had become their first hit.
In 2024, Pet Shop Boys released a new recording of "Being Boring" on Furthermore, the bonus EP with the two-disc version of their fifteenth album, Nonetheless. In the middle of the song, Tennant says the words that are written at the beginning of the music video.
The single cover (pictured) was designed by Mark Farrow with photographs by the Douglas Brothers. The layout is essentially the same as the album cover of Behaviour. The quote attributed to Zelda Fitzgerald was included on the back cover.
Critices called the song "wistful", "Hardly boring, but certainly one of their most gently-handled tracks. The Scandal-style productions puts the emphasis on the charming lyrics which deliver the Tennant muse in oblique phrases, not unlike those found in a New Order song. As usual its appeal is enhanced with each airing and, equally, it will enjoy a sustained chart performance." In 2023, The Guardian named "Being Boring" as the best Pet Shop Boys song: "Not just one of the greatest songs about the Aids epidemic, but one of the greatest songs written about mortality and memory".
The song was not initially played on the 1991 Performance tour, leading many fans, including Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses, to complain about its omission. As a result, it was added as an encore late in the tour, with the band commenting that it "invariably got the best reception of the night".
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