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Let’s Hear It for the Boy
by Deniece Williams

“Let’s Hear It for the Boy” was one of the first songs that found its way into the Barry Anderson soundtrack, and it was the first song for years, until I picked “St. Elmo’s Fire,” which wasn’t until after I posted Chapter 1.

When I’m first developing a soundtrack for one of my stories, I tend to go for low-hanging fruit in the form of the most obvious songs for a story concept.  I have been known to just do a search for “boy,” “girl,” “man,” and “woman” and see what song titles come up.  I have long since harvested most of the most iconic of these songs, plus many other weird ones.

Although this song isn’t one of my favorites in Barry anymore, partially for being much less literal or ironic, lyrically, than most Barry songs are these days, I still do love it for this.  And it being such an early song, it was quite pivotal in determining the vibe of Barry music.  I knew pretty quickly that I wanted it to be an ironic, nostalgic bop.

Each of my soundtracks sounds so different from the others, even my different comedies, and even my different gender-flipping comedies (if you think there’s only one or two, you certainly need to get to know me better).

Sam & Jane, my husband and wife Freaky-Friday-Flip novel (which, as I’ve mentioned before I don’t intend to share with the wider internet), has the most similar soundtrack to Barry, with nostalgia and irony, including the classics requisite for my strange little genre: “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson, and “Man, I Feel Like a Woman” by Shania Twain.  There’s also a lot of Justin Timberlake/*NSYNC in that one, and I desecrate some songs from Wicked, including “I’m Not That Girl” (it works beautifully in context, let me assure you), and a strangely emotionally poignant use of “Genie in a Bottle“.

However, Sam & Jane is mellower and more reflective in some ways (I’ll put a {rimshot} here, as the theme song for S&J is “Mirrors” by Justin Timberlake), while Barry is a chaotic meme-y dance party.  Sure, Barry has lots of reflective moments, and even quite a few dark moments, as befits themes of selfness and #motifs of speed, loss of control, and things getting spun and flipped around.  But Barry music always has the saturation turned up all the way.

Of all my stories, Barry Anderson is the most Ecee story, and it really shows.  And Ecee is my throw-up rainbows, dance like nobody’s watching, sing at the top of your lungs, glitter princess side, no matter how much she embarrasses me.  (Justin adds, “While Callous is the ‘Dance like no one’s paying you’ side?” 😏)

One of my best friends once said that Barry and the soundtrack feel like biting into crystallized honey or honeycomb; she said it’s like “sweet and gushy and overwhelming but also surprising crunch and structure.”  And neither she nor I knew how honey would end up fitting perfectly into #motifs, but that’s a topic for another day.

Like a “psychedelic vintage bop” she said.  I’ll take it, lol.

In any case, “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” was a forerunner for the rest of the Barry soundtrack, so it shall always have a place, despite other songs surpassing it for faves.  I guess I just find it ironic in its own way that a song I have for such a significant part of the story as the inciting incident of Barry receiving his powers, is so non-specific to that, and so… casual?

But I guess that’s what makes this song ironic for Barry’s sixteenth birthday, in a way that I love, enough for it to endure.  It’s a classic summer bop about a normal boy, who is special because of how he makes the narrator feel.  Its lyrics discuss how he’s special in his adorable normalcy.  He’s not special because he’s eloquent, or because he has fashion sense, or can sing or has money; he’s special because he loves her and is genuine about it.

And all of that so does and so doesn’t apply to Barry Anderson at the same time.  I picture the beginning of the song like the part that happens as the opening credits roll in an 80s movie.  As he wakes up on his sixteenth birthday, Barry is glorying in his normal life, wanting nothing but to celebrate his typical-teenage-boyness by going through the rite of passage of getting his driver’s license.  He’s enjoying his doofy dinosaur t-shirt and his bacon, all “dur dur dur,” perfectly content to be an average kid whose mom happens to be a fairy godmother.

But around as the second chorus hits, I picture the stroke of sixteen striking, and Barry receiving his gender-flipping fairy godmother powers, forever eliminating his option to be truly normal.  “Let’s hear it for the boy, let’s give the boy a hand…” as purple mist swirls around his body and his boobs pop out.  Okay, it’s definitely better on irony than I’m giving it credit for.

So I like this song as an ongoing celebration of Barry, and the boy he is… even in the times when he technically isn’t.  A celebration of a boy who both is and isn’t remarkably average.

He may not be a Romeo… but as my story will get to, Romeo was a little bit of a flighty, immature teenage boy who seemed to be as much in love with the idea of love, as in love with Juliet.  I don’t think Shakespeare ever intended Romeo to be the poster boy for the quintessence of masculine love.  I think he intended it to demonstrate how two teenagers, growing up in petty families, were left alone and desperate and found hope and solace in each other, while neither had the guidance to know how to have healthy adult relationships, yet while both still had enough purity, untainted by their cultures, to see past each other’s pedigree and into each other’s hearts.  But all of that might be neither here nor there at the moment.

A few things Romeo is known for, which Barry has in abundance, are rash decisions and a propensity to get carried away.  (And swooning for girls very quickly after meeting.)

So let’s cheer on the boy.  For his good days and bad days.  For his genuineness, and the times he tries to hide that genuineness for fear no one would want it.  Barry is the biggest idiot sometimes, and he runs into walls constantly, but he is a good guy who really cares about people and tries really hard.  He’s a beautiful little mess… but he’s my beautiful little mess.  And I see through to his heart, and love him for the boy he is, even when he isn’t.

Also, picture with me, if you would, with the latter parts of the song, a pissy Grape stomping around in little high heels, new voice squeaky and whiny, scary new hips all swishy, trying and failing to convey to Nick and Frank that he’s still a boy, really!!  While “Let’s hear it for the boy!  Let’s hear it for my man!” plays ironically in the background.

Okay, maybe describing my use of this song might have bumped it back up a few tiers of my love for it, lol.  Irony is forever.

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