“Slit Skirts” by Pete Townshend

Pete Townshend is a musician from England who’s primarily known for being down with The Who and rightfully so, considering that he has run with that act for almost 60 years now, and The Who is considered a classic rock band. 

However, from 1977 to 1993, Townsend also dropped six solo studio albums, the third on the list being “All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes”, a product of Atco Records that came out on 14 June 1982. And the last song on its standard playlist is “Slit Skirts”, which was written by Townsend and produced by Chris Thomas.

The Lyrics of “Slit Skirts”

The earlier segments of this song read like the philosophical ruminations of a depressed man who, despite being “just 34 years old”, comes off as if he’s going through a full-fledged midlife crisis. To reiterate, these earlier passages are quite philosophical, to the point that pinning down what the vocalist is getting at, besides for two discernible ideas, is challenging. 

One of those, once again, is that he’s suffering from a serious case of “the blues”. And secondly, that depression is being fueled by what Pete perceives as problems in romantic relationships, which he presumably is also suffering from or undergoing.

It isn’t until we get to the first rendering of the chorus that it starts to become ascertainable that Townshend is furthermore speaking to what can be termed the negative effects aging has on romantic relationships, from his perspective. 

The main line of this song, “Jeanie isn’t wearing those slit skirts”, seems to allude to the more simply put notion that she, as the result of aging and the associated changes in her shape presumably, no longer has the confidence to dress sexily or revealingly. 

And as also revealed the vocalist is going through something similar, as he “don’t ever wear no ripped shirts”. But all lyrics considered, there’s also a difference between what Jeanie and Pete are experiencing, as the latter has not only lost the confidence of youth but may also be suffering from something like erectile dysfunction (ED).

“Slit skirts, slit skirt
Jeanie isn’t wearing those slit skirts, slit skirt
She wouldn’t dare in those slit skirts, slit skirt
Wouldn’t be seen dead in no slit skirt”

It has been offered that this song represents what Townsend was actually going through in his life when he was 34 years old, which was just a couple of years before “Slit Skirts” was dropped. At that time both his professional and love life were in peril, and he also developed a drinking problem. 

So all of that considered, it may well be that Pete was suffering from ED and related maladies, and that such is what this song is based on. And that hypothetically would explain why some of the wording is so confusing, because such an affliction tends to be both depressing and embarrassing to men and not something that a sufferer, especially someone who is going through this in his early 30s for instance, would be eager to talk about publicly.

But with that being theorized, as implied “Jeanie” has also reached an age where she’s not as romantically eager as in times past. Or another way of theoretically interpreting what’s being relayed here is that she more recently struck up a romance with the vocalist, and he has proven less capable sexually than her ex. 

On one hand, you may say to yourself what’s the big deal? That’s what Pete seems to be arguing in the post-chorus, that “true heart romance” or “a brief new romance” is something to celebrate in and of itself.  But he and the other party “aren’t thinking up romance”. 

Instead, as implied, instead of focusing on the relationship per se she’s thinking of her ex, and he’s trying to figure out a way to increase his masculinity in his advanced age, such as going to the gym and boozing before bonking.

In Conclusion

So taking all of the above into account, perhaps we can say that the moral of the story is that as people age and become more experienced in the field of romance, relatedly they also become less carefree and more difficult to satisfy. Or in the very least, this represents our best attempt to make sense out of the lyrics of “Slit Skirts”, which are not only indirect but also painfully confusing at certain points.