Boys Don't Cry

Written by Michael Dempsey, Robert Smith and Lol Tolhurst, "Boys Don't Cry" found the Cure's frontman grappling with the expectation that an English boy should hide what he feels. The lyrics follow a man who has given up trying to win back a lost love and instead tries to disguise his true emotional state. Smith later told the NME that he never found it awkward showing his emotions when he was younger, and that he made a deliberate point of railing against being told not to do something. The single came out in the UK on 12 June 1979 and appeared as the title track on Boys Don't Cry, the American equivalent of the band's debut album Three Imaginary Boys.

In April 1986 the track was re-released under the title "New Voice · New Mix", with the original remixed and the vocals re-recorded to promote the compilation Standing on a Beach, though the album itself carried the original version. A 12" "New Voice · Club Mix" later turned up on the 2018 remastered Deluxe Edition of Mixed Up, while the 7" mix stayed out of print until January 2026, when it returned to streaming sites alongside the B-sides ahead of a physical release that April.

The 1986 video featured three children miming the song, with Smith, Tolhurst and Dempsey appearing behind a curtain as their shadows. Dempsey's cameo was his only appearance with the band since his 1979 departure, and the red-eyed effect was achieved by painting the trio's eyelids with fluorescent paint.