"The Boys Light Up" is the second single and title track released by

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

band

Australian Crawl Australian Crawl (often called Aussie Crawl or The Crawl by fans) were an Australian rock band founded by James Reyne (lead vocals/piano/harmonica), Brad Robinson (rhythm guitar), Paul Williams (bass), Simon Binks (lead guitar) and David R ...

from their debut album ''

The Boys Light Up ''The Boys Light Up'' is the debut album from Australian pub rock band Australian Crawl, which was released in 1980 and contains the title track, " The Boys Light Up", "Indisposed", "Downhearted" and their previously released debut single " Beau ...

'' (1980). The song was written by lead singer

James Reyne James Michael Nugent Reyne OAM (born 19 May 1957) is an Australian rock musician and singer-songwriter both in solo work and, until 1986, with the band Australian Crawl. Biography Early years Reyne was born in Lagos, Nigeria. His father, Ro ...

Australian Crawl's producer David Briggs was the

Little River Band Little River Band (LRB) are a rock band originally formed in Melbourne, Australia, in March 1975. The band achieved commercial success in both Australia and the United States. They have sold more than 30 million records; six studio albums rea ...

's guitarist, and had helped them to a recording contract with

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...

. "The Boys Light Up" peaked at #22 on the Australian Singles Chart. The song contains the

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

"dorseted", to rhyme with "corseted".

"People aren't used to hearing 'Dorseted', and it's not actually a word - it's from the Dorset Gardens - I'm trying to be as suburban as possible, and it rhymed with 'corseted'." - James Reyne, 2003

The single was almost banned from radio play and some TV shows due to its explicit lyrics. Reyne makes observations about cocktail parties that his parents attended, including where one of his teachers was caught in the garden with someone else's wife. Many listeners believe the chorus lyrics are about smoking marijuana but Reyne has stated that it was about smoking tobacco cigarettes when he was in Form Four at

The Peninsula School , motto_translation = Hold fast that which is good , established = 1961 , type = Independent, co-educational, Anglican, day and boarding school , denomination = Anglican , slogan ...

. In an interview with Peter Thompson on the ABC Television program ''

Talking Heads Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991.Talkin ...

'', broadcast on 31 May 2010, Reyne answered a question on what the song was about, "Well, really? It's about fellatio, but ..it was also about the sort of burgeoning, you know, kind of... new middle class, the new money and the new money aspirational... uh... class."

Track listing

#"The Boys Light Up" (James Reyne) - 4:41 #"Boot Hill" (Reyne) - 2:36

Charts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boys Light Up, The 1980 songs Australian Crawl songs Songs about Australia Songs about tobacco EMI Records singles Songs written by James Reyne