Summary
Boys Don't Cry by The Cure is, on the surface, a tribute to teenage angst and a slice of pop perfection.
Lol Tolhurst, the band's drummer, wrote the song with his band mates in Robert Smith's parents' house extension.
Poorna Bell saw the song's lyrics echo her husband's struggle with expressing his emotions, and describes the devastating impact which that can have.
Runner Derek Redmond recalls the moment he lost his 'game face' at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, and Sara Pacella and Jeffrey Axt chart the changing fortunes of a giant Boys Don't Cry poster.
Producer: Sally Heaven.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2018.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to quickly tell you about some others. |
| 0:05.2 | My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland. |
| 0:11.3 | It's a job I really love because we get to tell the stories that really matter to people here, |
| 0:16.3 | but which also resonate and apply to listeners around the world. |
| 0:19.6 | And because the team has such a diverse |
| 0:21.2 | range of skills and strengths, we have trained journalists, people who love digging through |
| 0:26.0 | archives, we've got drama and even comedy experts. We really can do those stories justice. So if |
| 0:31.8 | you like this podcast, head to BBC Sounds where you'll find plenty more fascinating stories |
| 0:37.1 | from all around the UK. |
| 0:39.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:42.4 | I met my husband on a blind date, so we were set up by a mutual friend who had decided, despite |
| 0:48.1 | me telling her I didn't want to date for a very, very long time, that this would be the |
| 0:52.5 | perfect opportunity for her to set me up with her |
| 0:56.4 | journalist punk rocker friend. We met in a sushi restaurant in Brixton. I mean, I didn't really |
| 1:02.6 | know what to expect because I knew who's from New Zealand. I thought I was going to get this |
| 1:07.6 | beautiful home-in-away style blonde surfer and instead I got this very |
| 1:14.2 | shaven-headed, tattooed, broad-shouldered kiwi. |
| 1:19.0 | My name is Pura Nebel and I'm the executive editor of the Huffington Post in the UK. |
| 1:24.4 | Our relationship moved fairly quickly, which for myself is really unusual because actually |
| 1:29.4 | I'm a commitment foe, but he was so self-assured, you know, he had absolute faith in our |
| 1:36.9 | relationship and the way that he loved me and the way that I loved him, it was just this perfect |
| 1:43.3 | equilibrium of us being in the exact same |
... |
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