The Story Behind “Pictures of Lily” by The Who and the Woman Who Inspired It

Burlesque performers and actresses used photographs to advertise shows in the early 19th century. Postcards, lithographs, and calendars often featured images of women in seductive poses. Some felt these photos were a positive movement showing respect for female beauty and a post-Victorian rejection of bodily shame, while others took offense and felt the images corrupted societal morality and damaged a woman’s dignity. As people displayed these portrayals, they would often be “pinned up” on a wall, leading to the term “pin-up girl.” In the 1930s, magazines began publishing idealized versions of women painted by Charles Dana Gibson, Alberto Vargas, and others. Men’s magazines, like Esquire, featured wholesome pin-ups, while Hugh Hefner founded Playboy to feature nude and semi-nude models. When Pete Townshend began seeing his first wife, she had some black-and-white postcards of some scantily clad actresses on her bedroom wall. One of these inspired Townshend to write a song. Let’s take a look at the story behind “Pictures of Lily” by The Who.

I used to wake up in the morning
I used to feel so bad
I got so sick of having sleepless nights
I went and told my dad
He said, “Son, now here’s some little something”
And stuck them on my wall
And now my nights ain’t quite so lonely
In fact I, I don’t feel bad at all

“Lily” Langtry

Emilie Charlotte was a British stage actress born in 1853. The media championed her as she was linked with authors, royal figures, and noblemen. Oscar Wilde encouraged her to pursue acting. In 1874, she married Edward Langtry and became professionally known as Lillie Langtry. It was a photo of her owned by his girlfriend Karen that inspired Pete Townshend to write the song “Pictures of Lily.”

In 2012, Townshend wrote in Who I Am: A Memoir, “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 VIl, 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 burgeoning adolescent sexual frustration when his father presented him with dirty postcards over which he could masturbate.”

Pictures of Lily made my life so wonderful
Pictures of Lily helped me sleep at night
Pictures of Lily solved my childhood problems
Pictures of Lily helped me feel alright
Pictures of Lily
Lily, oh Lily
Lily, oh Lily
Pictures of Lily

The Adolescent Stage

Townshend enjoyed putting out a song so clearly about something lewd and watching it go up the charts. He told the New Musical Express in 1967, “(Who bassist) John Entwistle and I used to swap ‘dirties’ when we were kids at school—we used to get a kick out of buying a thousand pin-up pictures at a time from tawdry little newspaper shops. It’s funny how some film actresses have sex appeal, and some don’t—Bardot still has it, so has Loren. This adolescent stage is a very real part of a young person’s life. I remember when I was 14, I got a bus pass for school without my age on it, and I forged ’16’ on it so I could go into X films.”

He also complained about the genre of popular music becoming too introspective. He cited “Strawberry Fields Forever” by The Beatles specifically, and The Beach Boys generally, when he complained about music fans having to come to a pop group for spiritual guidance. He referred to “Fun, Fun, Fun” by The Beach Boys as “power pop,” and some have credited Townshend with coining the term. His stance is ironic, considering some of the subject matter he would go on to explore in future songs. 

And then, one day, things weren’t quite so fine
I fell in love with Lily
I asked my dad where Lily I could find
He said, “Son, now don’t be silly”
“She’s been dead since 1929”
Oh, how I cried that night
If only I’d been born in Lily’s time
It would have been alright

Mermaid Voices

Just as the song indicates, Langtry died of pneumonia in 1929 in Monte Carlo. Her body was returned to England, where she was buried in Jersey. The Who recorded the song at IBC Studios in London on April 5, 1967. Entwistle told Mojo magazine in 1994, “The thing I hate about ‘Pictures of Lily’ is that bloody elephant call on the French horn. I also hated the backing vocals, the mermaid voices, where we’d sing all the ‘oooooohs.’ I hated ‘oooooohs.’” Lead singer Roger Daltrey later said the French horn solo was attempting to emulate a World War I klaxon siren, as the object of the main character’s desire was a pin-up from the World War I era.

Pictures of Lily made my life so wonderful
Pictures of Lily helped me sleep at night
For me and Lily are together in my dreams
And I ask you, “Hey, mister, have you ever seen”
“Pictures of Lily?”

“More Intrigue”

The song peaked at No. 4 in the UK, but failed to make the Top 40 in the U.S. It has since generated heavy radio play Stateside on the classic rock format. Daltrey looked at recording the song as a challenge as it was openly about teenage masturbation. Years later, he told Uncut magazine, “I saw the words, and I knew what it was about. So I deliberately thought I’d sing it the opposite way, with complete innocence. Instead of it being something suggestive, it tweaks it the other way, and it gives it a little more intrigue.”

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Photo by Wilson Lindsay/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images