[10] The Cure, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’

But, of course, they do. Yes, I’ve deciphered Fat Bob’s pouty-lipped whinings, a mere 29 years after everyone else did. What’s more, Pornography was just a rather ponderous slab of doom-pop and not, after all, some unbelievably unnecessary etchings of Bob and Lol Tolhurst in flagrante. And The Head On The Door was a dream.

Anyway, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ – in which not-yet-fat-just-a-bit-pasty Robert Smith and gang invented desperately wan indie-pop for The Mighty Lemon Drops and (bringing it into the 21st century) Good Shoes to pick up and run with. But you can’t blame The Cure for everything; this is an honest song, packed with embarrassingly familiar emotion, and a tempo that crashes into itself, awkward as a teenage lad. It’s concise and warm.

Still, only a twerp with windmilling arms in a fraying, too-large, black woolly jumper could dance to it. Junior refuses point-blank, but says she likes it all the same. Asks for a repeat too. The Cure repeated it themselves seven years later, re-recorded and buffed up. Don’t do that.

2 thoughts on “[10] The Cure, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’

  1. Ah, that dance, that jumper, them windmilling arms. How often did that ensemble help this twerp get lucky in the clubs of yore?

    (Answer: Once)

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