{"id":950677,"date":"2026-05-10T15:19:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T15:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/950677\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T15:19:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T15:19:19","slug":"the-who-song-from-1968-that-john-entwistle-couldnt-stand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/950677\/","title":{"rendered":"The Who song from 1968 that John Entwistle couldn’t stand"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

Credit: Alamy<\/p>\n

Sun 10 May 2026 13:01, UK <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Have that happen to four members in the same band, and then when those ideas begin conflicting with one another, it\u2019s a ticking time bomb. It won\u2019t surprise you to hear that The Who<\/a> had conflict like this, and there was one song in particular that John Entwistle hated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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\u2019s just a hop, skip and a jump until you\u2019re cranking out tunes about\u2026 well\u2026 cranking one out. <\/p>\n

Yes, this disagreement stems from a song about masturbating. Townshend came up with \u2018Pictures of Lily\u2019 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\u2019s dead. <\/p>\n

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\u2019t stop The Who from including it in their setlist, and it also didn\u2019t stop the band from writing more wanking soundtracks, as on\u00a0The Who Sell Out,\u00a0there was more masturbation music in the form of \u2018Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Credit: Far Out \/ Flickr<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

That combination of humour, awkwardness and social commentary became one of The Who\u2019s defining traits as they pushed rock music into increasingly ambitious territory.<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n

Entwistle\u2019s frustration with \u2018Pictures Of Lily\u2019 also reflected the broader creative tensions that frequently existed within The Who. Although Townshend was the group\u2019s principal songwriter and conceptual leader, the band\u2019s chemistry often depended on the contrasting personalities and instincts of all four members. Entwistle\u2019s dry cynicism, Keith Moon\u2019s chaos and Roger Daltrey\u2019s more grounded perspective regularly collided with Townshend\u2019s grander artistic ambitions, which helped create the volatile but electrifying dynamic that made The Who so distinctive.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t the theme that John Entwistle had a problem with; instead, it was the song\u2019s instrumentation. <\/p>\n

In an interview with Mojo, he spoke about why he hated the song<\/a>. \u201cThe thing I hate about \u2018Pictures Of Lily\u2019 is that bloody elephant call on the French horn,\u201d he said. \u201cI also hated the backing vocals, the mermaid voices, where we\u2019d sing all the \u2018oooooohs.\u2019 I hated \u2018oooooohs.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

The Who\u2019s exciting music set them apart from many bands at the time, and Pete Townsend\u2019s 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\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Alamy Sun 10 May 2026 13:01, UK Fame acts as a catalyst for friction. If you are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,56868,269,14569,14566,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-950677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-john-entwistle","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-pete-townshend","12":"tag-the-who","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116550957967970138","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}