Ted Ottaviano and Susan Ottaviano of the band Book of Love. Gary Gershoff/Getty Images Book of Love — the Philadelphia-bred synth-pop quartet best known for the hypnotic 1985 single “Boy” — are releasing a 40th anniversary reissue of their landmark debut album on June 26, just in time for Pride.
The band emerged from Philadelphia’s art school scene in 1983, relocating to New York’s East Village at a moment when the downtown creative world was colliding with the nascent synth-pop revolution.
Their early break came as the opening act for two Depeche Mode tours in 1985 and 1986, exposing them to massive audiences who recognized a kindred sensibility. Their music built on tubular bells and deadpan vocals and an emotional undertow that felt unlike anything else in the American pop landscape. They never became household names, but in queer clubs and on college radio they built a following that has proven remarkably durable
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Ahead of a sold-out 10-city fall tour with all four original members, The Hollywood Reporter caught up with songwriter and keyboardist Ted Ottaviano and lead singer Susan Ottaviano (no relation) over Zoom.
I want to start with “Boy” because it means so much to me. Every time I hear it, I have to stop whatever I’m doing, turn it up and listen to the end. There’s not many songs that have that hold on me. What is it about that song?
Ted Ottaviano: We’ve been trying to figure that out for 40 years. For some reason that one has a magic. It’s got some sort of voodoo in it. But I do think there’s no fat on it. It’s a trim-the-fat cut.
The bells, the singing, the message. Who wrote it?
Ted: I did. I wrote the lyric.
But you’re a boy. So what were you thinking? What was in your mind?
Ted: I was a disenfranchised boy trying to find myself. At that point I became a gay man, but at that point I was just a very confused young boy. “Boy” is ostensibly about a girl who wants to be a boy, but it’s really just about belonging. Feeling misaligned with the rest of the people around you and wanting to be accepted: I feel like that’s the message that gets people, whether it’s overt or not.
Susan Ottaviano: It’s for all the outsiders. People who felt left out and who felt different in some way. And Ted has written many songs from a female point of view.
There’s a sadness to it. It’s not a triumphant gay anthem — a “set me free, I’m walking out the door” kind of song. It’s “I want to be somewhere I’m not allowed to be.” That’s a melancholy feeling.
Ted: Totally. Peter Rauhofer, the great remixer who passed away a few years ago, he remixed the song in 1999 and got it to No. 1 on the Billboard dance charts. But he called me and said, in his cute German accent, “They wanted it to be a peak-hour record, Ted, but the chords are so sad.” He was able to make both things happen at the same time — the sadness and the peak.
Spaces and gender have become a huge political flashpoint since then. Has the song taken on new meanings?
Susan: Absolutely. What’s genuine for us is that we wrote from our point of view — life in New York City in the mid-’80s, things going on in our lives. But the song still speaks to people because there’s such a question about gender now. For us, we were writing from what we knew and what we were experiencing, including about women being left out of things.
“Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls” — I’ve seen it said that was the first song to address AIDS head on. Is that true?
Susan: That’s what we were told. It was the first major label artist to address the AIDS crisis. They kind of tried to make us tone it down a bit, but we’re very proud of that.
Tell me the story behind it.
Ted: When people think of ’80s music, there’s always this exuberant feeling around it, which is true. But in New York City in the ’80s, it was a very dark time. That’s when the AIDS pandemic really hit the city hard. We lived in the East Village, which was a real multicultural artist neighborhood, and it affected all types of people.
When I think of our first decade in New York, I have a real mixed set of emotions because of that. So I wrote “Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls.” It’s got two levels. You can hear it as a fun pop track, but if you put another filter on, it’s basically saying “we live in a dangerous world right now. Keep safe.”
We got asked to use that song for a Sunkist commercial and we were like, no. We can’t have a bunch of people in bathing suits bopping around the beach to this song. Our managers were thoroughly frustrated with us.
Susan: People were dying around us. In cities, that’s where AIDS hit the hardest.
Your music has ended up in some interesting films. Book of Love member Lauren Roselli had a small part in The Silence of the Lambs, and one of your songs ended up in it through her relationship with the director.
Ted: Jonathan Demme heard an advance of the album and clicked with “Sunny Day.” It’s actually used in her scene — and it’s a pivotal scene. It’s a small scene but a really important one. She gives Jodie Foster’s character the clue that leads them to Buffalo Bill’s house.
Susan: Lauren used to say, “They can’t cut my part — she gives them the clue.” Demme used a lot of musicians and friends in small parts in his movies. He used a lot of Chris Isaak.
And then “I Touch Roses” in American Psycho. I don’t think it’s a coincidence — Silence of the Lambs, American Psycho, the “Tubular Bells” cover you did with its Exorcist connection. There’s a tension and sadness in your music that fits horror. You don’t make happy music.
Ted: I didn’t realize we had this horror category happening in our catalog.
Susan: Well, Ted said “I Touch Roses” is about empowerment, and “Boy” is about empowerment too — especially the way it was used in Companion, which just came out. The roles reverse. At the beginning the girl is on the bottom, and at the end she’s on the top.
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