That day, I took the weathered copy of Colour by Numbers to my mother for analysis and explanation. I wanted to know who this was and what it all meant, post haste. Mom seemed closely acquainted with the old cardboard square, and not particularly surprised that I would have been drawn to this, of all objects. She explained that the album had been sort of a gag gift to my brother as a young or perhaps even pre-teen. He, and my mother, had, however, both ended up liking it quite a bit. Culture Club was, she noted, very popular at the time, and Boy George had been something of a fashion icon. I wanted to know more about Boy George. Well, she told me the record was a good one, but, then, that wasn't what I wanted to know. I wanted to know about this Boy George, what sort of life he had, what shade of lipstick that was he was wearing. Mom informed me that this particular album, which had been very popular in its day and liked both by herself and my young brother, was made in the wake of broken romance. Oh, of course, yes. This made perfect sense to me. Though Boy George was powdered without flaw, he looked, also, sad and perhaps distant. Mom went on to say that the romance had been with the band's drummer, who she pointed out in one of the circles. This, too, made sense. The drummer was the band member I'd liked the least; he was handsome, but also greasy-looking. He would break a person's heart. And, well, he did break Boy George's heart, left him to marry a woman and then broke that engagement, too. And still, there was the album to write, both of them squished into the same little rooms, the sound of their voices echoing against the soundproofing. Boy George had written songs which, mom said, were about this experience. I demanded we take a listen.
There is, without doubt, something slightly unhinged about my unending attraction to music which manages to sound both chipper and tragic. I have lists of songs which, when played on the radio or heard in clothing stores, elicit little reaction from the general public other than, if generous, a disinterested head nod or smirk. These are works which make me feel as if I've entered into an exclusive club, that I've become one of the Special People, able to understand the true pathos, the real sadness, of their writers. Paul Simon's “You Can Call Me Al” is one of these: a nice, hopping little ditty which jaunts along, with a video which stars Chevy Chase leering and lip syncing goofily, and whose lyrics are all about fear of growing older and of mortality and a sense of futility at the speeding gallop of years. Oh, I've got plenty of these songs. If I were to make a mix of them, there would be all sorts of recognizable hits among the ranks. I could write an entire blog just about this strange categorization of mine, and maybe, one day, I will. Or, I could just direct you to the entirety of “Colour By Numbers.”
It was after my first listen to “Colour by Numbers” that I began building my own vision of Boy George's persona. I've always been a person who, when interested in a person for their art or music or work in film, becomes fascinated, also, in the person themselves. I am drawn to these characters because of the lives I imagine for them, lives I base only loosely on the bits of their real lives I read or hear about. Mostly, I create their existence based on what I see as the image wavering through their work. I checked Boy George's Wikipedia page before writing this blog, just to make sure I didn't get anything to terribly wrong, and I saw the following quote from the man himself “People have this idea of Boy George now, particularly the media: that I’m tragic, fucked up. I mean, I’m all those things, but I’m also lots of other things. Yes, I’ve had my dark periods, but that isn’t all I am.” I felt, upon seeing this, a little wriggling of guilt, because my picture of Boy George, the one that drew me to him so strongly, is the picture which dominated “Colour by Numbers.” This was a person I could relate to, a sad person singing over cheerful tunes. As Boy George's voice strained over the songs on my brother's old album, I sensed a kindred spirit. Sure, Boy George was dancing through his videos and drawing his eyebrows to perfection, but something else was cracking through. He was trying his best, but, still, he was troubled.
By high school, I'd learned that Boy George was born in a small Irish town where he never fit in, where maybe he'd even be treated with cruelty. This was something I understood, being, myself, from a small town where I didn't feel I'd ever really fit in. I admired George's flamboyance; when I felt ready to cave in, I'd listen to “Colour by Numbers” and continue to dress and act in the way I wanted, the way which caused me to be labeled a weirdo. After all, George had survived it. I'd learned, too, about his drug problems. The drugs made sense to me. Boy George, I thought, probably felt a lot like me. Boy George remained a kindred spirit. He wore those extravagant outfits and was noticed, yet he wanted to fade away. Boy George wanted to be himself, yet couldn't stand himself at all. As I wandered through my adolescence I kept tabs on George's latest happenings. I longed for his happiness with the same intensity which I longed for my own. I hoped, for George, a life of quiet contentment, the sort of life I figured both of us assumed we'd never attain.
When I heard the news of Boy George's assault on a male escort, about how he had dragged the man and chained him to the wall, the man only able to escape after pulling a bolt free, I was, perhaps shockingly, not shocked. My sentiments were, immediately, with the victim of such a horrible crime. Boy George had never exactly been a role model to me, so I wasn't crushed by this revelation. I'd always known George as a troubled man with a troubled life. George was like an uncle I loved and related to while knowing that, even as he had been victim to bad things, he was capable of inflicting bad things himself. While I was almost certain George deserved jail time, perhaps even more than he actually served, in some way I mourned for him. I mourned for the loss of his former beauty, the bloated and pale frame he presented at trial, how ill he looked. I mourned that George had once been young and now was not, that he had fallen for grace. I also thanked him for making such grievous mistakes that I might learn not to be so wholly consumed by sadness and bitterness as George himself obviously had. And I listened to “Colour by Numbers.”
Not long ago, I saw a brief interview with Boy George where he remarked on how he had spent his time in jail reading. People would send him books, and he would spend days in the cell quietly working through the western literary canon. This seemed just, to me. Around the same time, I heard a new song which Mark Ronson had featured George on. I immediately loved it. Boy George's voice had changed, it was raspier and more coarse, it seemed strained and filled with regret. It was much like what I think Edith Piaf's performances must have sounded like in her last days. There is, in many ways, little to admire about George as a person, and yet my feeling of kinship persists. I don't go in much for Karaoke, despite loving to sing drunkenly in public, but when I have fantasies about performing in a smoky bar I am almost always rocking slowly back and forth, with or without a single tear rolling slowly down my glistening cheek, singing with great emotion “Time (Clock of the Heart).” This is the relationship I continue to have with Boy George: as a singer of great songs. Though I continue to wish George happiness and hope for his contentment, for the most part he is crystallized for me. In my mind, Boy George remains captured in the most sad and glorious moments of his youth: singing songs about the man who broke his heart while trapped in the same room with him, spinning, for a brief but eternal span, the desperation which seems to have characterized his life into hope for others. Into something beautiful.
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