Dead Boys

Album: Dead Boys EP (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • This guitar anthem finds Sam Fender singing about a social stigma among men in his hometown of Newcastle in which they're unwilling to discuss suicidal thoughts.

    We close our eyes
    Learn our pain
    Nobody ever could explain
    All the dead boys in our hometown


    "It's a song about male suicide, particularly in my hometown," Fender explained to NME. "I lost some friends very close to me because of that. This song came from that place."
  • The song was partly inspired by The Cure's 1979 track "Boys Don't Cry."

    "It's the same today," Fender told The Sun newspaper's Bizarre column. "As a boy you're not meant to show your emotions, but if you don't have a job or any prospects, you're going to be depressed and it will be much worse if you can't express that. I hate the term because it's become a buzzword, but it's toxic masculinity."

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