o happy day

[kindkit]

The awesomely gay video to Pete Townshend's awesomely gay 1980 song "Rough Boys" is up on YouTube! I looked for it a couple of years ago and was disappointed not to find it.

I think I've only seen the video once before today, back when I was quite young. I'm happy to see that my memory didn't deceive me; it really is just that awesomely gay.

Here, have a look:

Comments

[damned_colonial]

!!!

Just when I thought it couldn't get gayer, there was that bridge with "I'm gonna get inside you." And then rhyming "I wanna buy you leather" with "We can't be seen together". How did I miss this when I was a kid? I would have been ALL OVER IT.

Again I say: !!!

PS, via wikipedia: "For many years Townshend refused to confirm or deny rumours that he was bisexual." Um. OK.

[kindkit]

I think it might even need five exclamation marks: !!!!! And the hand gesture, like in The Middleman.

You might also want to give And I Moved a listen. It's from the same album, and very nearly as gay as "Rough Boys."

Townshend has this weird and kind of infuriating history of taking baby steps out of the closet and then running back in. In the early 1990s he did an interview for some rock music book where he said (I'm quoting as exactly as I can remember) "I understand gay people. I know what gay sex is like." Then Roger Daltrey had a public shit fit about it, helpfully reinterpreting Townshend's comment in case anyone imagined it meant Townshend, you know, knew what gay sex is like. And Townshend then did another interview where he said he was straight.

I kind of want to know what business it was of Roger Daltrey's. More specifically, I want to know how many how many times on tour they drunkenly fucked and then pretended it had never happened. Because Daltrey sure seemed to take the possibility of Townshend's queerness very personally.

[dingsi]

Just when I thought it couldn't get gayer, there was that bridge with "I'm gonna get inside you."

OMG yes. That was the moment my jaw dropped.

[violetisblue]

I'm embarrassed to this day at how long it took me, as a young Who/Pete Townshend fan, to figure out Townshend was gaygaygaygaygaygaygay with a side order of gay.

[kindkit]

Well, however long it took, that still makes you quicker on the uptake than Townshend himself. Who still seems not to have figured it out completely.

By the way, that's a fabulous icon.