The Boys Light Up

"The Boys Light Up" is the second single and title track released by Australian rock band Australian Crawl from their debut album The Boys Light Up (1980). The song was written by lead singer James Reyne [1] [2]

Australian Crawl's producer David Briggs was the Little River Band’s guitarist, and had helped them to a recording contract with EMI.[3]  "The Boys Light Up" peaked at #22 on the Australian Singles Chart.[4]

The song contains the neologism "dorseted", to rhyme with "corseted". "People aren't used to hearing 'Dorseted', and it's not actually a word - it's from the Dorset Gardens - I'm trying to be as suburban as possible, and it rhymed with 'corseted'." - James Reyne, 2003[5] Dorset Gardens hotel is a pub in Croydon an eastern suburb of Melbourne.

The single was almost banned from radio play and some TV shows due to its explicit lyrics.[6]  Reyne makes observations about cocktail parties that his parents attended and one of his teachers was caught in the garden with someone else's wife.[5]  Many listeners believe the chorus lyrics are about smoking marijuana but Reyne has stated that it was about smoking tobacco cigarettes when he was in Form Four at The Peninsula School.[5]  In an interview with Peter Thompson on the ABC Television program Talking Heads, broadcast 31 May 2010, James Reyne stated that the song was about fellatio. ==Track listing == ==Charts<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> ==
 * 1) "The Boys Light Up" (James Reyne)<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-APRA_1-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[1]  - 4:41
 * 2) "Boot Hill" (Reyne)<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-APRA_1-2" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[1]  - 2:36