Guys Cry Too - Rey Valentine Song Review

I’ve written about Rey Valentine three times before, so calling myself a fan would be underselling it. This is my fourth review, and at this point it’s clear: I don’t just like his music, I love it. What keeps pulling me back is the emotional continuity. Rey doesn’t just release songs; he builds a story.

With “Guys Cry Too,” released January 13, 2026, he may have just closed a cycle.

When Rey posted about the track, he wrote: “While everyone was out this past summer, I stayed in and wrote this melancholy surf number.” That line frames everything. This wasn’t a summer song; it’s a song written while summer is happening somewhere else. Isolation. Reflection. Memory. And musically, that “melancholy surf” sound carries the ache forward like a tide that doesn’t quite recede. But to really understand “Guys Cry Too,” you have to look at what came before it.

It starts with “She’s in My Class,” the innocence of a first crush. That wide-eyed feeling of noticing someone across the room and letting imagination do the rest. Then comes “Diner Girl (She Went Away)” — first love in its fragile form. You finally tell the girl you’ve had feelings for, only to meet embarrassment and rejection. It’s tender, awkward, formative.

The third chapter, “Westcoast Heartbreak,” shifts the tone entirely. This isn’t hallway butterflies anymore. It’s heavier. Adult. The bruised silence that follows a real love slipping through your fingers. It’s the first time heartbreak feels structural — like it rearranges you. And now we arrive at “Guys Cry Too.” If those earlier songs are about the event of heartbreak, this one is about the aftermath.

“The leaves fade, but you remain / In my mind, all the time.”

That line feels like the emotional thesis of the entire cycle. Seasons change. You tell yourself you’ve moved on. Time passes. But memory doesn’t operate on the same clock. Maybe you thought you were over her after that first real breakup. Maybe you convinced yourself you were fine. But as Rey sings:

“I try to move on / But it’s just so hard and I cry.”

This is the reckoning. Not with her — but with yourself.

The refrain, “Guys cry too, yes they do,” lands differently when you place it at the end of this arc. It feels earned. The shy crush couldn’t say it. The rejected kid wouldn’t admit it. The heartbroken adult might have tried to bury it. But here, at the end, he says it plainly. And it’s impossible not to hear this song in conversation with Boys Don’t Cry by The Cure. Where that song hides vulnerability behind denial — “I would say I’m sorry if I thought that it would change your mind” — Rey’s track feels like an evolution. Not boys pretending they don’t cry, but men admitting they do. It’s not ironic. It’s not defensive. It’s exposed.

There’s also that devastating couplet:

“Don’t wanna live / But I don’t wanna die.”

It captures that in-between emotional paralysis that follows love’s end. Not melodrama — just disorientation. The kind of numb ache where nothing feels the same, but life keeps going anyway. This song makes me think of the awesome time I had with someone.

Last summer, I was seeing someone. We had a fun summer together, but towards the end, she felt that we weren’t compatible personality-wise, and it just ended mutually, quietly, and maturely. But since then, I’ve felt exactly what Rey describes. I still think about her. I still wonder how she’s doing. That very typical guy thing where your first real breakup or mutual ending lingers longer than you expected. You tell yourself you’ve moved on. You say you’re good. But then a random memory surfaces, and you realize she still occupies space in your mind.

Like Rey says: the leaves fade, but she remains.

Maybe she’s moved on. Perhaps she’s happy. Meanwhile, you’re still replaying moments, still revisiting conversations, still holding onto something that technically ended months ago. That’s why this song feels like closure — not because it resolves the heartbreak, but because it acknowledges it honestly.

The production reflects that intimacy. Rey handled the words, music, production, and arrangement himself, with mixing and mastering by @radiowells and vocal arrangement support from @martinaacass. What makes Rey compelling — and why I keep writing about him — is this willingness to document emotional growth in real time. Vulnerability isn’t weakness here. It’s evolution. It takes confidence to say, publicly, “I cried.” It takes even more confidence to build an entire song cycle that traces the journey from boyhood crush to adult reckoning.

If “She’s in My Class” is innocence, “Diner Girl” is humiliation, “Westcoast Heartbreak” is impact, then “Guys Cry Too” is aftermath. And the aftermath is often the most honest part.

This feels like the closing scene of a chapter — the camera lingering just a little longer, long enough to admit what we’re not always brave enough to say out loud. Guys cry, too. Yes, they do.