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Sun 10 May 2026 13:01, UK
Fame acts as a catalyst for friction. If you are a creative person, you will get behind your ideas and stand by them. As people begin to engage with your music, it cements the fact you have good ideas, so you come up with more.
Have that happen to four members in the same band, and then when those ideas begin conflicting with one another, it’s a ticking time bomb. It won’t surprise you to hear that The Who had conflict like this, and there was one song in particular that John Entwistle hated.
No one is arguing with the fact that Pete Townshend had a brilliant mind. His ability to develop complicated concepts led to some of the most exciting and narrative-driven LPs ever made, as people still look at Tommy and Quadraphenia and hold them up as classics. However, when someone has an exceptionally creative mind, things can get a little crazy a little fast. You write a fantastic album, you break America, and then it’s just a hop, skip and a jump until you’re cranking out tunes about… well… cranking one out.
Yes, this disagreement stems from a song about masturbating. Townshend came up with ‘Pictures of Lily’ because he wanted to see if a song about masturbating could ever be a hit. The track has a story embedded in it about a young boy whose father gives him some dirty pictures of a movie star. The boy becomes infatuated with the raunchy model, even developing feelings for her; however, things take a turn when he looks up at the woman and finds out she’s dead.
The track came out in 1968, when just the mention of sexual themes was enough to stir up controversy, and as such, there were a lot of radio stations that refused to play the song. That didn’t stop The Who from including it in their setlist, and it also didn’t stop the band from writing more wanking soundtracks, as on The Who Sell Out, there was more masturbation music in the form of ‘Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand.’
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Part of what made Townshend such a provocative songwriter during this period was his willingness to inject uncomfortable or taboo subject matter into otherwise infectious pop songs. While many British bands of the 1960s still cloaked controversial themes in vague metaphor, Townshend often approached them with a mischievous directness that forced listeners to engage with ideas mainstream pop rarely acknowledged openly.
That combination of humour, awkwardness and social commentary became one of The Who’s defining traits as they pushed rock music into increasingly ambitious territory.
Further reading: From The Vault
Entwistle’s frustration with ‘Pictures Of Lily’ also reflected the broader creative tensions that frequently existed within The Who. Although Townshend was the group’s principal songwriter and conceptual leader, the band’s chemistry often depended on the contrasting personalities and instincts of all four members. Entwistle’s dry cynicism, Keith Moon’s chaos and Roger Daltrey’s more grounded perspective regularly collided with Townshend’s grander artistic ambitions, which helped create the volatile but electrifying dynamic that made The Who so distinctive.
The theme seems somewhat egregious, and even a great songwriter like Pete Townsend will naturally struggle to form a track around the solo sexual act without it coming across as strange. That being said, it wasn’t the theme that John Entwistle had a problem with; instead, it was the song’s instrumentation.
In an interview with Mojo, he spoke about why he hated the song. “The thing I hate about ‘Pictures Of Lily’ is that bloody elephant call on the French horn,” he said. “I also hated the backing vocals, the mermaid voices, where we’d sing all the ‘oooooohs.’ I hated ‘oooooohs.’”
The Who’s exciting music set them apart from many bands at the time, and Pete Townsend’s imaginative songwriting ability usually paid dividends. That being said, there were some instances where his ideas went further than popular culture allowed. These songs didn’t sit right with a lot of the public and even his own bandmates, as John Entwistle could never get behind the ode to solo loving.
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