"Other ranks" lyrics

[Juliet Stevenson:]
"Whenever I recall some past epoch", Alan once said
"I think of whoever I was in love with at the time"
1943
Alan gradually transferred himself to nearby Hanslope Park
Devising a new speech encipherment process
It became known as The Delilah, the deceiver of men
Delilah turned Churchill's words into a white noise
An uninformative hiss

[Neil Tennant:]
Oh, Delilah, deceiver of men
Turning secret words into white noise
Science and sex
Science and sex
Oh, Delilah, deceiver of men
Turning secret words into white noise
Science and sex
Science and sex

[Juliet Stevenson:]
There was an occasion when he was invited to a drinking party organised by the other ranks
He was very pleased
Partly at breaching social-class barriers
But surely also because of the allure of that vast England of working-class men

[Neil Tennant:]
Science and sex
Science and sex

[Juliet Stevenson:]
Alan suddenly dropped into the conversation with apparent casualness
The fact that he was a homosexual
His young Midlands assistant was both amazed and profoundly upset
It was not only what Alan told him that he found repellant
But the unapologetic attitude
If sometimes he had seen his sexuality as a cross to bear
It was more and more a fact of life
One as much of a heart of what he was
As that equally unasked-for, equally amoral love
Of natural science

[Neil Tennant:]
Oh, Delilah
Oh, Delilah
Science and sex

[Juliet Stevenson:]
Science and sex
They had been the two things that allowed Alan Turing to jump out of the social system
In which he was trained

[Neil Tennant:]
Science and sex
Science and sex