Published 1932 | Writer(s) Noël Coward | |
"Mad About the Boy" is a popular song with words and music by actor and playwright Sir Noël Coward. It was introduced in the 1932 revue Words and Music by Joyce Barbour, Steffi Duna, Norah Howard and Doris Hare. The song deals with the theme of unrequited love for a film star. It was written to be sung by female characters, although Coward also wrote a version, which was never performed, that contained references to the then risqué topic of homosexual love. The song gained new popularity in 1992 when Dinah Washington's rendition was used in the Levi's television advertisement "Swimmer", directed by Tarsem Singh.
Contents
Lyrics
The song expresses the adulation of a matinee idol by a number of women as they queue outside a cinema and is sung by several female characters in turn. The adoring fans sing of their love for their hero:
Coward later wrote additional verses for the New York production, to be sung by a male character. The lyrics make explicit reference to homosexual feelings with lines such as:
The lyrics also make camp humorous reference to the supposed effeminacy of the character, who is likened to the contemporary film actress Myrna Loy, and to his repeated unsuccessful attempts at conversion therapy with his psychiatrist. The verses were never performed, as any reference to homosexuality fell foul of the censorship laws of the time, and the new version was banned.
"The boy" was rumoured to be Douglas Fairbanks Jr, who, according to an American newspaper years later, "Noel loved...[but] Doug definitely didn't love him back, although the two men became good friends." Actor Tyrone Power has also been the rumored subject of the song.
Dinah Washington version
Dinah Washington's 1952 recording of "Mad about the Boy" is possibly the most widely known version of the song. The 6/8-time arrangement for voice and jazz orchestra by Quincy Jones omits two verses and was recorded in the singer's native Chicago on the Mercury label.
Washington's version was popularised for a new generation when it was used as a backing track in a 1992 television advertisement for Levi's jeans. In the commercial, which is influenced by the 1968 Burt Lancaster film The Swimmer, a young man runs through an American suburban neighbourhood stripping down to only his jeans, invades private gardens and dives into a series of swimming pools to shrink his jeans. Washington's recording was re-released by Mercury as a tie-in in with the advertising campaign, and the cover art featured a shot of the shirtless man emerging from a swimming pool and bore the Levi's logo. The single entered the Top 50 in the UK singles chart.
Other recordings
The song has been performed by a number of other artists, including: