Boys That Sing

Album: Viola Beach (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • This jaunty ode to young love finds Kris Leonard recounting an episode with a cheerful, beer-guzzling girl who inspires envy from the Mona Lisa. Leonard wrote the song when he was 15.
  • Kris Leonard sings about his mum, Lisa, on the chorus

    And she said that together we could do anything
    And she told me that she loves a boy who knows how to sing
    So I learnt how to sing


    When Viola Beach were starting off, Lisa was a huge support for the fledgling band, buying them instruments and letting them rehearse in her garage. Kris wrote the chorus down in his notebook one day in tribute to his mum.
  • The grammatically incorrect "Boys That Sing" - "Boys Who Sing" is to be preferred - was released on SoundCloud in January 2016; running to 3 minutes 13 seconds, it was their last single, as less than a month after this track was released, all four members plus their manager died when their hire car left the road and plunged into a canal near Stockholm. >>>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2
  • Coldplay performed this as a tribute at Glastonbury, following the death of all four band members. Chris Martin told the crowd: "We're going to create Viola Beach's alternate future and let them headline Glastonbury for a song."

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