Boys Do Cry remake of The Cure classic launches campaign to arrest male suicide rate

Rapper Dallas Woods has lost loved ones to suicide. Now, he’s joined a remake of a famous song from The Cure to show men they can get help before it’s too late.

First Nations rapper Dallas Woods is “sick of going to funerals”. He’s lost too many family members and friends to suicide, boys and young men who couldn’t ask for help when they needed it because they felt it was a “burden”.

He is on a mission to break down the taboo of putting up a brave front instead of seeking help with the Boys Do Cry campaign, launched this week with a remake of The Cure’s famous song featuring a choir of 30 men from different walks of life.

“Real men get help and real men do cry, I wish I had that convo with my brothers in the sky,” he raps in the emotional piano-driven remake.

Dallas Woods on the set of Boys Do Cry, the new Australian mental health campaign. Picture: David Collins.

In that verse, Woods, who grew up in the Kimberley in Western Australia, which he said has one of the highest rates of suicide per capita in the world, speaks directly to the loved ones he has lost, the cousin who took his life when the rapper was just 11 through to the best mate he was texting on the day he died.

“I’d lost a lot of mates around that time but that was the one that blew my mind because I was texting him that day, I was meant to see him. One minute he’s there, happy as, there was no indication … sometimes you know people are going through some stuff but he was literally the life of the party, the glow in the room,” Woods said.

“It really was the first time I questioned ‘What the actual hell … why?’”

The choir with the team behind the rework of The Cure’s Boys Don't Cry. Picture: David Collins.

The Boys Do Cry campaign was created by advertising executive Simon Lee, who took 30 years to confront his chronic anxiety, and in conjunction with The University of Melbourne’s Centre for Mental Health and Gus Worland’s mental fitness foundation Gotcha4Life.

In the last 12 months in Australia 2384 men have taken their own lives. That’s an average of seven men every day, making suicide the leading cause of death in Australian males aged 15-49.

British-born Lee said the “stiff upper lip” mantra he grew up with also permeates Australian culture” and does not “produce emotionally balanced men who are comfortable to emote.”

“Before I had therapy, my fear was if I went deep inside myself to examine what was going on, the sense I had was this fear of murky darkness, this writhing kraken of the deep waiting down there,” he said.

“When you start peeling back the layers, it wasn’t as scary or dark as I thought it was and the knot in my stomach loosened and the ongoing negative dialogue in my head relaxed a little bit.”

The choir circle at the Boys Do Cry shoot. Picture: David Collins

The music video has already been tested by the The University of Melbourne Centre for Mental Health as part of the Buoy Project to identify effective suicide prevention interventions for boys and men.

Preliminary findings from their random controlled trial of the Boys Do Cry clip found “men were more likely to say they would seek help if they were struggling.”

Woods has spent the past 14 years, alongside his music career, working on social and emotional wellbeing health campaigns in more than 300 remote and urban indigenous communities and sees Boys Do Cry as a pivotal moment in the mission to arrest male suicide rates.

“Out of the Kimberley, I’ve been able to get to the resources and the people to help me through my own journey of healing and now we have to normalise that, not let it keep being normal to not do anything about it,” he said.

IF YOU NEED HELP PLEASE CALL:

Lifeline Australia – 13 11 14 (available 24/7)

Text 0477 13 11 14

Chat online: lifelife.org.au (7pm-midnight)

Kids Helpline – 1800 55 1800

Kidshelpline.com.au

Beyond Blue – 1300 224 636 (available 24/7)

Originally published as Boys Do Cry remake of The Cure classic launches campaign to arrest male suicide rate