i don't think there's an adolescent out there who hasn't paused and questioned his/her sexuality, and what i think Boy is filled with is the sound of a naive, almost unconscious questioning of self and sex and the body and what it means to change and to shift and to morph from one thing to the next to leave innocence behind (the opposite of HutDab).
yes, i find many references that could be construed as having homoerotic overtones especially if we were to do what is known as a "queer reading" of Boy -- by "queer reading" we seek to fill in the spaces, because it is the "love that dare not speak it's name" homosexuals have always communicated through signs, symbols, "codes," manners of dress, etc. the job of a queer reading is to spot the spaces where the suggestion of that which is queer -- by which we can only mean not heterosexual -- is evident, and then suggest what these spaces can mean within the larger framework of the book, play, novel, or album.
[q]I look into his eyes
They're closed but I see something
A teacher told me why
I laugh when old men cry
My body grows and grows
It frightens me, you know
The old man tried to walk me home
I thought he should have known
[/q]
the last couplet, in particular, is very homoerotic to me. it suggests -- and, remember, it's not important what Bono meant, what is important is how it is interpreted and how valid those interpretations are -- that of a boy becoming a man, of an awakening of sexuality, of the possibility of that sexualty being homosexual (which, in Ireland in 1980 would have to have been as vague as possible), and the fact that many young gay men seek out older gay men as they explore their feelings and attractions. the last line, in particular, what is the old man supposed to have known? is the old man gay and he's misreading the sexuality of the narrator? or is the narrator trying to let the old man know -- and we could get into a big discussion on "coded" language, the symbiotics of queer communication -- that, yes, he is curious and he would like to let the old man walk him home ... home from school, home from the pub, home from a club ... who knows, but what's important is that the suggestion is there, and from the suggestion meaning and intepretation can be created.
and the fact that this is followed by an explicitly heterosexual song, "an cat dubh," the juxtoposition strikes me as evidence of sexual confusion, or at least tension between what is comfortable or formal or expected and the unknown.
more:
[q]There's a picture book with color photographs
There's a comic strip that makes me laugh
Sometimes away he takes me
Sometimes I don't let go
[/q]
one constant theme in Queer Studies is the homoerotic nature of comic books, how the characters are both paragons of masculinity (in tights) and how the characters all have secret lives, secret identities, etc. there's loads of stuff to be read.
i think in the book Paul McG says that he always tought "stories for boys" was about masturbation, and i agree.
and note: it's the "hero" who "takes me" and that "sometimes" not all the time but sometimes "i don't let go" -- the suggestion of homosexual experience is there.
more:
[q]I can't find my way home
I'm alone
I've lost my way home
You know and you know
And you know and you know
And you know[/q]
while this is very vague, within the overall context of loss of innocence and fear and excitment about sexuality, the idea of being lost within the sexual realm could logically be about homo vs. hetero.
so, there's lots going on. i don't think that anyone in U2 is gay, but i think they write from an open, honest, emotional place, and the best artists are the ones who feel more and edit less and it seems entirely natural that adolescence would be aware of sexualty, and ambiguity and uncertainty about sexuality, and why wouldn't that be a part of this particular form of popular self-expression, the album Boy?