Aspirations of Cowboyhood
Boys Don't Cry were discovered by Paul Oakenfold, who was a talent scout for Profile Records in London in the mid-80s. Best known for being Run DMC's record label at the time, Profile signed the band for the U.S. market and Legacy retained the rights to the band's UK releases. Mercury Records won the bidding for Canada and Intercord Tonträger GmbH handled their releases in Germany.
The single "I Wanna Be a Cowboy" was released in 1986. A novelty song with deadpan humour and kitschy references, the song has been described as the perfect musical realisation of a spaghetti western movie. It hit No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 13 on the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales chart in 1986-1987, and was R&R No. 8. "I Wanna Be a Cowboy" was also a top 10 hit in Australia and South Africa. The video featured a cameo appearance by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead.
They would go on to release two full-length albums: a self-titled debut in 1986, which included "I Wanna Be a Cowboy", and a follow-up the following year titled Who the Am Dam do You Think We Am. The second album was simply released in America as Boys Don't Cry, creating some confusion there, since the band now had two consecutive self-titled albums released within a year of each other. The follow-up single to "I Wanna Be a Cowboy" was (necessarily perhaps) a complete departure; "Cities On Fire", an energetic rush of synth-rock which was released in 7" and 12" remix form, received early attention from MTV but failed to connect with fans of the novelty hit and didn't receive enough airplay to create a new fanbase.
On July 30, 1997, co-writers Nick Richards and Brian Chatton sued Paula Cole, Warner Brothers Records, and Imago Records, along with remix producers DJ EFX, Big Ed, and the E-Team, for $7 million in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, claiming that Cole's remix of "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" used the phrase "I wanna be a cowboy" 24 times in the same style and syntax as their song and constituted copyright infringement.
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Famous quotes containing the words aspirations of and/or aspirations:
“But I would emphasize again that social and economic solutions, as such, will not avail to satisfy the aspirations of the people unless they conform with the traditions of our race, deeply grooved in their sentiments through a century and a half of struggle for ideals of life that are rooted in religion and fed from purely spiritual springs.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“The influx of women into paid work and her increased power raise a woman’s aspirations and hopes for equal treatment at home. Her lower wage and status at work and the threat of divorce reduce what she presses for and actually expects.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)