‘Boys Don’t Cry’ magazine lyrics feature alternate version of ‘Blonde’

*Blonde* lyrics & CD, *Boys Don’t Cry*, pp. 176–177.

The centerpiece of Frank Ocean’s Boys Don’t Cry magazine is the lyrics and CD for its companion album, Blonde. Interestingly, however, the lyrics printed in the zine do not quite match the included album; instead, they document an unfinished version of Blonde amid its development. This discrepancy is likely a partial holdover from the first iteration of Boys Don’t Cry, which Ocean originally intended to release in July 2015. A similar production artifact appears in the magazine’s credits, which list several artists as “album contributors” who do not appear on Blonde or contributed only to its sister project, Endless.

The magazine’s lyrics list an alternate 12-track sequence of Blonde, including two songs omitted from the final, 17-track album. The most notable artifact is the unreleased song “Easy,” which features lyrical similarities with the Blonde track “Self Control” and the Endless track “Hublots.” Unique versions of “Nights” and “White Ferrari” from Blonde are also present, alongside a version of “Mitsubishi Sony” that appeared in the initial boysdontcry.co livestream of Endless but not the visual album released on Apple Music. All the track titles in the magazine are stylized in lowercase lettering, and two feature alternate spellings compared to their released versions: “night.s” (Nights) and “pink & white” (Pink + White).

Seven tracks from Blonde are absent from the magazine’s lyrics, suggesting they may have been finalized or added during later stages of the album’s development; these include “Nikes,” “Be Yourself,” “Self Control,” “Good Guy,” “Solo (Reprise),” “Facebook Story,” and “Close to You.”

Notably, the magazine’s lyrics do not correspond to the limited edition C D -R released with Boys Don’t Cry at pop-up shops on August 20, 2016. The CD-R features the same 17 tracks as the digital release of Blonde, but alternate versions of two songs: “Nikes,” with a closing verse by Japanese rapper KOHH, and “Pretty Sweet,” without Ocean’s opening verse. The lyrics for “Nikes” are omitted from the zine, and the lyrics for “Pretty Sweet” match the song’s digital release, rather than the CD-R. [Later reissues replaced the CD-R with an Audio CD that matched the digital album, although the lyrics printed inside the magazine remained the same.]

The Blonde CD is mounted on a plastic hub and nested within a circular cutout that runs across 16 pages. The “blonde kid” referenced by Ocean in the zine’s opening letter serves as the backdrop for lyrics that line the edges of the intervening pages. The photograph appears normally on the first two-page spread, while each subsequent spread is overlaid with a progressively more opaque blonde-colored filter, allowing for the lyrics to appear with better contrast. Interestingly, the first two pages with the filter are blank, suggesting they were added as placeholders for additional tracks.

Scans of the magazine and a transcript with its unique lyrics are provided below.