Boys Don’t Cry

INFO

In late June, The Cure released Boys Don't Cry as the second single.

STORY

"On 28 June, in Port Talbot, Robert sat me down and said 'Look Bill, I don't want to be like The Boomtown Rats'. That made me laugh and gave me an insight into Robert's character, the first indicator of what was to come. I thought 'What does he mean? There's no way in the world he could be like The Boomtown Rats'. It got me thinking and it was only later that I supposed what he meant by that was that he wouldn't be manipulated. I took it as a sign of inherent weakness in terms of how much he'd be prepared to take to see through what he was doing and I started thinking about just how far this band could be pushed. It's very frustrating when someone says something like that to you - you just want to say 'Fuck off, get like The Boomtown Rats and then change it. Don't back off before you've found out what the water's like'. And the seriousness on his face, the worry of it all, struck me as very odd.
"I knew that Killing An Arab would be fun but Boys Don't Cry was my pick for the Top 10. It didn't get there because Polydor stitched us up. Boys Don't Cry was a hit song and it should have been a hit. Robert was disappointed and he had a right to be. It was a farce."
Chris Parry, Ten Imaginary Years (1988)