Adam Lambert says redoing ’30s-era tune “Mad About the Boy” was “a cool opportunity”

Adam Lambert has released his version of Noël Coward’s 1932 show tune “Mad About the Boy,” which will be featured in the 2023 documentary Mad About the Boy: The Noël Coward Story. Adam says getting to record the song by the late, legendary British playwright, composer, director and actor was not only a “cool opportunity,” but a “nice challenge.”

Coward, who died in 1973, never publicly acknowledged his homosexuality, which is why it’s significant that Adam has recorded the song, which features lyrics like, “Mad about the boy/I know it’s stupid to be mad about the boy/I’m so ashamed of it/But must admit/The sleepless nights I’ve had about the boy.”

“He wrote it about a man and he was never really able to record it because that would have been too taboo for that time,” Adam tells ABC Audio. “So it’s always been a torch song sung by amazing female vocalists. And when they realized, ‘It’s 2022, we’re going to put this film out,’ they came up with the idea of having a guy sing it as it was really intended.”

“When they asked me to do it, I thought, ‘What a cool opportunity,'” Adam adds. He also appreciates the fact that the song allowed him to stretch artistically.

“I haven’t really recorded anything that was sort of jazz-leaning before, but it’s something that I always kind of been interested in,” he notes. “I guess I sang some of that style of music here and there as a musical theater kid, but never on record as an adult. So yeah, it was, like, a nice challenge!”

Adam will kick off his upcoming Halloween-themed tour The Witch Hunt October 19 in Oakland, CA. It wraps up October 30 at the Hollywood Palladium.