Actors and Bootblacks perform “Boys Keep Swinging” (2022)

I’m slightly confused about who all is performing this very faithful cover of, “Boys Keep Swinging.” There’s the Vancouver-based band Actors for sure, then, I think there’s the Brooklyn-based band Bootblacks, and then on top of that, there’s Leathers, which is, I think a third band featuring Shannon Hammett, who is also part of Actors.

In any case, this cover is very similar to Bowie’s original, right down to the vocal stylings. So this is obviously an homage. Just to be clear about that, many if not all the performers appear in this video in drag— men dressed as women and vice versa, and the lead singer (Hammett?) at the end, pulls off her wig and smears her lipstick just as Bowie himself did in his groundbreaking video from 1979.

I read somewhere once that “Boys Keep Swinging” seems on the surface to be a gay-themed song, but really isn’t. I mention this because I agree— if anything it is a tounge-in-cheek commentary on the supposed privileges that come with being male. So the cross dressing and all that has little to do with the song’s actual lyrics.

It occurs to me that followers of these bands might be unfamiliar with Bowie’s original song and more likely, unfamiliar with the video, so this might give them something to discover. That said, I enjoyed hearing this rendition and watching the video, which has high production value for what I believe to be a local band.