The Crying Game

Songs in Our Heart # 83

The Crying Game (Boy George version) (written by Geoff Stephens; released August 1992) [The Varnished Culture, upon hearing Boy George’s 1982 musical question, “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?,” answered with a resounding “Yes!” Yet a decade later, post-Culture Club, this 1960s lost-love song, a lush throw-back, superbly produced by the Pet Shop Boys, is a perfect vehicle for the Boy – his crisp, clean, almost-falsetto pop tenor voice delivering a lovely, torch-sad lyric, assuming the role of a player so used to losing at love he’s now an expert at the game:

“Someday soon I’m gonna tell the moon
About the crying game
And if he knows, maybe he’ll explain
Why there are heartaches, why there are tears
And what to do to stop feeling blue
When love disappears…”

It complements Neil Jordan’s bittersweet trans-gender film of the same name (see main image) – one recalls the two old ladies’ shock in Father Ted, “You think it’s a woman, but it’s a man!” – but the song stands alone as a really impressive 90s pop entry:]