| Townshend: On Karen's bedroom wall were three Victorian black-and-white postcard photographs of scantily dressed actresses. One was the infamous Lily Langtry, mistress of Prince Edward, later King Edward VII, and one sunny afternoon while Karen was at work I scribbled out a lyric inspired by the images and made a demo of "Pictures of Lily." My song was intended to be an ironic comment on the sexual shallows of show business, especially pop, a world of postcard images for boys and girls to fantasize over. "Pictures of Lily" ended up, famously, being about a boy saved from burgioning adolescent sexual frustration when his father presented him with dirty postcards over which he could masturbate. (2012, 110) |
