Mad About the Boy

Mad About the Boy is a Dinah Washington song that Bridget Jones plays in her kitchen the morning after sleeping with Roxster. Its appearance gives her happiness a sound and a gesture: she dances around the room while memories of the previous night keep returning.

The Song in the Diary

On Saturday morning, Roxster has just left, and the children are due back with Daniel in twenty minutes. Bridget puts on Mad About the Boy and dances moonily around the kitchen. The brief scene sets her private exhilaration against the approaching demands of the day, with the song occupying the interval before the children return.

Mood and Memory

Bridget describes feeling so happy and fantastic that nothing seems like a problem. She wanders about in a daze, picking things up and putting them down, and compares her state to being bathed in sunshine before correcting the image to something like milk. The song accompanies this altered, buoyant mood rather than explaining it: her thoughts repeatedly move from the kitchen back to the intimacy of the previous night.

Place in the Scene

The diary recalls specific moments with Roxster: Bridget coming out of the bathroom in her slip, removing it, and seeing his face as they made love. She remembers the shock and thrill of physical intimacy after a long absence, and the ecstasy of their bodies moving together. After she comes sooner than expected, Roxster watches her with a disbelieving expression and begins to laugh; her immediate question follows. Against these vivid memories, the song marks the morning’s lingering afterglow, while the approaching return of the children brings the scene back toward ordinary family life.