Who is Orange Juice's Blue Boy?

July 7, 2014 11:18 AM

In the Orange Juice song, Blue Boy, the lyrics go: "He wasn't listening to her lying tongue. He was listening to the words being sung by the blue boy". Who is the Blue Boy?

The only three Blue Boys I know are 1. Little Boy Blue from the nursery rhyme, 2. Gainsboro's painting Blue Boy, and 3. a nick-name for men in blue uniforms (either Union soldiers in the Civil War and/or modern day police officers). However, I can't see why any of them would be singing to him or what the Blue Boy would be singing about... Please hip me to the news.

posted by goml to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

No idea if this is at all related: there's a drug-dealing, acid-dropping wastoid youth character on a very special episode of Dragnet The LSD Story named Blue Boy.
posted by Juliet Banana at 11:24 AM on July 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: According to Q Magazine journalist Simon Goddard, it's about Pete Shelley from the Buzzcocks:

“Edwyn wrote this tribute to Buzzcocks’ singer Pete Shelley in 1977, performing a jerky prototype with his first “punk” (of sorts) band The Nu-Sonics."

You can read the excerpt in Goddard's book here:

'Blue Boy' dates back to The Nu-Sonics, written in 1977 after Edwyn met Buzzcocks' Pete Shelley backstage in Edinburgh on the White Riot tour. The original draft of the lyrics mentioned Shelley's pink 'Sta-Prest' twousers, later changed to gabardine 'because it scanned better'. Edwyn admits he took the 'curse' and 'bless' from Dylan Thomas's poem 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'. 'The lyrics are kind of crap,' laughs Edwyn. 'The record's good but the words are kind of back-of-the-envelope type stuff.'

posted by mykescipark at 11:40 AM on July 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Orange Juice being a Glasgow band, it could also be a reference to a boy dressed in a Glasgow Rangers outfit - a local soccer team whose kit is blue. The band was formed in Bearsden, not far from Summerston & Maryhill, both traditionally Rangers supporting communities.

Just a hunch, though.
posted by kariebookish at 12:03 PM on July 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you mykescipark, I bow to your search-fu. I swear I went through pages of search results and never saw that article.
posted by goml at 12:05 PM on July 7, 2014

Response by poster: kariebookish: I'm going to go with the second answer, but FYI: I happen to know all the words to FOLLOW FOLLOW.
posted by goml at 12:07 PM on July 7, 2014

Best answer: I was always of the understanding that it referred, at least in part, to this Blueboy. But I can't find any evidence on the web right now that this is actually the case.

Also, this is one of the greatest songs ever created by humankind. Though not as good as "Moscow Olympics."
posted by escabeche at 2:02 PM on July 7, 2014 [1 favorite]