‘90s punk irony was a style of discourse permitting the speaker to suggest two meanings, earnest and “sarcastic,” while taking full responsibility for neither. “My lyrics are a big pile of contradictions,” he writes. He was wary of being pinned down to single, simple meanings, in lyrics or in his journals. As Cobain writes, “Elitism = punk rock.” Also, it’s not a simple cri de coeur he used the journals to rehearse snappy lines for interviews and got the Townshend dis into BAM magazine in 1991. It is that, but also a bit of sly boomer-bashing agitprop. Pete Townshend was not smart to describe the journal entry, “Hope I die before I turn into Pete Townshend” as the “infantile … stinking thinking” of a suicidal addict. He often invited people to read his journals (“Hey, read this story I wrote about me lactating!”), and I’ll bet he wouldn’t mind your doing so-if you’re sympathetic and smart.ģ) Don’t read simplistically. 2) Don’t feel guilty-it’s not like reading a normal diary.
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