Songfacts®:

• In the second single from Bananarama's debut album, the English pop trio turns a shy boy into an ideal lover who "knows about a good time" and "gives me lovin' like nobody else." The song marked their first collaboration with songwriters/producers Steve Jolley and Tony Swain, who went on to helm their next two albums, but it was a rocky beginning. Like their previous single, a cover of the Velvelettes' "He Was Really Sayin' Somethin'," Bananarama was working a Motown vibe in "Shy Boy," but the pop singers weren't interested in being a modern-day Supremes. The group's Siobhan Fahey explained: "[Jolley & Swain] wanted us to do their songs, not ours. They wanted a 1980s version of the old girl groups, disembodied voices. They didn't see us as voices with ideas."
• Midge Ure and Chris Cross of the British new wave band Ultravox directed the music video, which finds Bananarama turning a nerdy office worker into a leather-clad hunk. The group's Sara Dallin enlisted her boyfriend, Terry Sharpe of the Irish rock group The Adventures, to star in the clip.
• Once this hit the UK charts, the girls were no longer able to remain anonymous. Dallin told Smash Hits in 1983: "After 'Shy Boy' was really successful, we were recognized all the time. I remember once on the Number 8 bus coming back from Top Shop, these little kids behind us started singing 'Shy Boy' and it was really embarrassing. That's the first time it ever happened."
• This was used in the 1985 comedy Fraternity Vacation, starring Tim Robbins.