I wanna be where the boys are
But I’m not allowed
I wait outside of the boy’s bar
I wait for them to all come out
Originally released in 1985, “Boy” was the debut single by the American synth-pop band Book of Love and later appeared on their self-titled debut album in 1986. More than four decades on, the song’s chiming elegance and quiet ache remain instantly recognizable—qualities that made it ripe for rediscovery when it resurfaced in the 2025 film Companion. Now, Catherine Moan offers a considered reinterpretation that keeps the song’s emotional center intact while shifting its light.
Written by Theodore Ottaviano, “Boy” centers on a luminous, bell-like chime motif that gives the song its buoyant, almost weightless feel. The band’s trajectory changed when a demo landed with DJ and producer Ivan Ivan, who passed it along to Sire Records founder Seymour Stein, securing Book of Love a recording contract and a place within the era’s emerging synthpop vanguard.
Lyrically, “Boy” sketches a delicate emotional imbalance: a narrator drawn toward someone who remains just out of reach, emotionally and romantically misaligned. The song traces the quiet frustration of longing—affection offered freely, but never quite returned in the way it’s hoped for. In later interviews, Ottaviano clarified that the song was inspired by Boy Bar, an exclusive gay club in New York’s East Village, giving the track a specific cultural anchor beneath its universal sense of yearning. That tension—between brightness and ache, hope and resignation—is what gives “Boy” its lasting pull.
Catherine Moan leans into that duality, honing the song’s shimmer and allowing the melody to hover with the soft glow of her daydream vocals. As with her cover of Depeche Mode’s “Fools,” Moan shows a knack for approaching canonical material without flattening its emotional nuance.
The cover was created in collaboration with Trey Frye of Korine, extending a distinctly Philadelphia lineage shared by Moan, Frye, and Book of Love themselves. Frye’s understated production touch deepens the song’s sense of synth-pop reverie, reinforcing a throughline that connects generations of the city’s electronic underground. The result is reverent of the genre’s history while confidently reframing it through a contemporary, emotionally grounded lens. Subtle differences separate this version from the original, save for Catherine Moan’s sighing vocals, which gently shift the song’s emotional weight—allowing it to linger, still bright and still wistful, but newly attuned to the quiet, unresolved ache of unreturned affection.
Listen below:
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The post Catherine Moan Shares Cover of Book of Love’s Wistful Synthpop Classic “Boy” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
