Songfacts®:

• The title sounds like a dig on the emo genre, where crying was encouraged. Dave Grohl was no fan of emo, but he claimed this song was not directed at it.
• Dave Grohl: "The title has nothing to do with the song - it's placed right in the middle of the record, where there's a lot of dark stuff. It's a pretty heavy record. We have a couple bummer tunes I felt the album needed something to sit in the center and balance it. So we had this lighthearted song, and I called it 'Cheer Up Boys (Your Make-Up Is Running)' because it seemed like a little ray of hope in the middle of all this despair." >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Bert - Pueblo, NM, for above 2