Pet Shop Boys signed with Parlophone, a subsidiary of EMI Records, in March 1985. By that time, Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant had been writing songs together for over three years. Their music was influenced by Italian disco, the emerging American hip-hop scene, and American producer Bobby Orlando's lo-fi electronic dance music. The duo had recorded some of their material with Orlando, including "West End Girls", which had been released as an unsuccessful single in 1984. Lyrically, the songs were inspired by their life in London at the time, with lyricist Tennant assuming different characters and occasionally writing satirical songs, such as "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)".
"Opportunities" was the first single for their Parlophone deal. They had written the song in 1983 and had subsequently worked on it with Orlando but never released it. Pet Shop Boys picked J. J. Jeczalik of Art of Noise as producer. The recording session took three weeks and cost £40,000. When the single was released in July 1985, it only reached 116 on the UK Singles Chart.
For their debut album, Pet Shop Boys wanted to work with Stephen Hague, the producer of Malcolm McLaren's "Madame Butterfly" and The World's Famous Supreme Team's "Hey DJ". Their record company initially wanted them to use Stock Aitken Waterman, but Pet Shop Boys were allowed to record "West End Girls" with Hague as a trial. Hague suggested slowing the song down and making it moodier, with more focus on the story and a filmic intro of street sounds. "West End Girls" was released in October, and the single climbed to the top of charts as they went on to record the rest of the album.
Please was made in 10 weeks, between November 1985 and January 1986, at Advision Studios in London. They sequenced the songs to form a loose storyline: "They run away in the first song ("Two Divided by Zero"), they arrive in the city ("West End Girls"), they want to make money ("Opportunities"), they fall in love ("Love Comes Quickly"), move to suburbia ("Suburbia"), go out clubbing ("Tonight Is Forever"), there's violence in the city ("Violence") and casual sex ("I Want a Lover"), someone tries to pick up a boy ("Later Tonight")" and then the sequence ends with "Why Don't We Live Together?"
"Two Divided by Zero", dating back to 1983, was co-written by Tennant and Bobby Orlando, who wrote the backing track; it was the only Pet Shop Boys song, excluding cover versions, for which Lowe does not share a songwriting credit. For the album version, Hague used a similar arrangement but gave it a bigger sound that conveys the sense of excitement of running away. The track features the voice of a talking calculator that Tennant bought in New York as a Christmas present for his father.
Hague shared a songwriting credit with the duo on "Love Comes Quickly" for coming up with the chord changes of the middle eight. The song was released as a single in February 1986 and just made the top 20 at number 19. "Opportunities" was reworked following the disappointing chart performance of its initial release. They did not have time to record a new version, but Hague used elements from the single as well as the 12-inch mix by Ron Dean Miller, and re-recorded the vocals. A portion of the original single, featuring a party scene, was used as the sixth track on the album, titled "Opportunities (reprise)". "Opportunities" was re-released as a single in May 1986, and reached number 11 on the UK Singles Chart and number 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
"Suburbia" was the last song completed for Please; due to time constraints, the album version is a polished version of the Pet Shop Boys' demo. When it was released as a single in September 1986, "Suburbia" was redone with producer Julian Mendelsohn and became the Pet Shop Boys' second top 10 hit in the UK.
For their first album cover, Pet Shop Boys manager Tom Watkins presented them with a fold-out latticework model, but they thought it was too complicated. In reaction, Mark Farrow created a minimalist white cover with a tiny photo of the duo in the center with their name and the title in small type underneath. The photo, taken by Eric Watson, shows Lowe and Tennant with white towels on their shoulders and was chosen from existing images for the way it blended into the background. The inner sleeve had 98 more small images by Eric Watson, Paul Rider, John Stoddard, Joe Shutter, Ian Hooton, Chris Burscough, and Chris Lowe. Some international distributors made changes to the cover: EMI America redid the cover with the name on the top, and in France a cover with a larger picture was made.
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