The song Pete Townshend used to come out as bi-sexual
Rock ‘n’ roll has forever been grappling with stilted gender norms. In 1972, Pete Townshend‘s old pal David Bowie announced: “[I’m] gay, and always have been”. The purpose of his remark, which he later detracted, was to shake up the conservative approach to sexuality at the time and use his art as an engine for greater liberation. This was a bold and brave move, but it opened the door for progress.
This has always been a tenet of the genre, as Townshend put it: “Rock ‘n’ roll might not solve your problems, but it does let you dance all over them.” With this in mind, The Who guitarist decided to espouse his own personal liberation in song. With his 1980 solo effort, Empty Glass, he was looking to get more personal with his music, reconciling his journey to this point.
One song typified this new introspective outlook, ‘Rough Boys’. A decade on from the single’s release, Townshend told Newsweek: “I know how it feels to be a woman because I am a woman, and I won’t be classified as just a man.”
He then described ‘Rough Boys’ as his account of this, explaining: “In a way, it was a coming-out. That it was a real acknowledgement of the fact that I’d been surrounded by people that I really adored – and was actually sexually attracted to – who were men. And that the side of me that responded to those people was a passive side, a subordinate side.” This earnestness at a time of great prejudice was a bold move by Pete, and it opened him up to a new fanbase.
He had, however, previously hinted at this with a single way back in 1966. “With ‘I’m A Boy’ it’s the idea of masculinity and the way that men are seen to be at a time when I often forget, to be homosexual, to be pansexual, as I think I probably was, but not anymore,” he told Rock Cellar Magazine. “But I think I was ready to fall into bed with anybody that would have me. I think I forget that homosexuality was still illegal, so these adventures had to be couched in vignettes of humour and irony.”
Nevertheless, he was much more willing to be up-front about his sexuality with ‘Rough Boys’, not just discussing his bi-sexuality “under the sheets” but also grappling with the notion of machoism. This resulted in refreshing discussions around the subject. “You have Pete’s sexual ambiguity going on here,” Alice Cooper mused in a Rolling Stone interview. “I still don’t know exactly what he was trying to say with that song, but I love it, whatever it is. Pete’s an amazing mystery.”
Despite his proclaimed pan-sexuality, Townshend has been married twice, once to Karen Astley from 1968 to 1994, and he later married Rachel Fuller in 2016.
