TL;DR:
- The Who’s Pete Townshend said that one of his songs was interpreted as “coming out”. Playboy.
- Townshend discussed how his words were misunderstood.
- He later mentioned his sexuality in his memoirs.
The Who’s Pete Townshend said that one of his songs was misinterpreted as a coming out song, even though it wasn’t. He once said he doesn’t consider himself bisexual and said he just has a feminine side. Subsequently, Townshend discussed his sexuality in a very different light.
The Who’s Pete Townshend discusses the misunderstanding caused by his solo song ‘Rough Boys’
A book Who You Are: The Life of Pete Townshend contains an excerpt for Playboy interview from 1994. In it, Townshend discussed his solo song “Rough Boys”, which appeared on his second album An empty cup from 1980.
“I did an interview about it, I said that ‘Rough Boys’ was about being gay, and in the interview I also talked about my ‘gay life’, which – I meant – was really about the friends I had had and who are gay.” ” he said. “So the interviewer kind of dotted the T’s and crossed the I’s and assumed this was coming out, which it wasn’t at all.
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Townshend discussed facing bigotry. “But I became the object of ridicule when it was picked up in England,” he recalled. “It was a big scandal, which is stupid. If I were bisexual, it wouldn’t be a big deal in the music industry.
“If I ran down the list of men who tried to get me into bed, I could bring down some big names in the music business,” he said. “And no, I won’t. He said he did not want to see bisexuality as something shameful.
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How Pete Townshend has discussed his sexuality in recent years
During an interview with Rolling Stone in 2002, Townshend was asked if he was bisexual. He said no; he simply had a feminine side. He considered his creativity to be feminine and compared his creative drive to the desire to give birth. Still, he said his femininity has nothing to do with his sexuality.
In his 2012 book Who I am: A memoryTownshend painted himself in a very different light. He said he realized he was “probably bisexual” around the time The Who released “I Can See For Miles” in 1967. Townshend said he was uncomfortable with that aspect of himself and wished he wasn’t ashamed. He said a 1990 article in the Orlando Sentinel described him as bisexual, causing his Catholic cleaning lady to quit.
Townshend eventually described himself as “probably bisexual” regardless of whether his song “Rough Boys” was considered a “coming out” song or not.
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