Ho Yay / Tears for Fears

• Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith have often joked about their marriage-like relationship. The most notable example is from a French talk show.
  Smith: It was a long marriage.
  Orzabal: I just wanted to see Curt jogging every morning with his hairy legs and shorts, all smiley and handsome.
  Interviewer: (English translation from French) Ultimately, you're inseparable because you're together again after ten years apart. You'll never leave each other now because when you're remarried, it's very difficult to divorce once more.
  Another guest: You are gay?
  Smith: Straight as I am, there's a phrase in America that "We're just gay enough."
• Curt sums it up best when he says, "We're like an old married couple. An old married gay couple."
• Orzabal (an introvert) has compared the Opposites Attract aspect of his relationship with Smith (an extrovert) to that of his first wife Caroline (whom he was married to for nearly 35 years before she passed away) because they both ignite a passion within him.
  Orzabal: It's the attraction of opposites, isn't it? I never looked up to [Curt], but I've ended up in my life with people who are more fiery than me, and bring out the fire, like my wife.
• In this interview, Roland further emphasizes the marriage analogy by presenting himself as the "husband" while Curt is the "wife" in their musical partnership.
  Orzabal: We're kind of like proud parents, me being Dad, [Curt] being Mum.
• Orzabal is sometimes very affectionate with Smith on stage, usually during performances of "Sowing the Seeds of Love", appropriately.
• Roland being touchy-feely with Curt is nothing new; when they were part of a pre-TFF band called Graduate, Roland kissed Curt at the end of a 1980 Spanish TV performance.
• Orzabal has claimed◊ that Smith is "the only man I've ever kissed," and Smith later tweeted that Orzabal is "the only man who's kissed me."
• If Roland can't kiss Curt in person, then he has dolls in their likeness◊ which can do the smooching and... other things as well.
  Orzabal: I had other poses of course.
• Three words: gay vegetarian disco. Besides offering a safe space for two Sensitive Guys who loathed the oppressive Stiff Upper Lip environment that they grew up in, one wonders what else made the place appealing to Orzabal and Smith during their late adolescence / early adulthood (hint: they're neither vegetarians nor disco fans). This is the main source for the gossip that the duo may have undergone a bi-curious phase with each other.
• Roland reveals that Curt has always been his muse, which traditionally carries a romantic/sexual connotation. Most heterosexual male artists have beautiful women as their muses, and it's interesting to note that Curt was once a Long-Haired Pretty Boy who could attain near Dude Looks Like a Lady level in some photo shoots.◊ ^note TFF collaborator Michael Wainwright had genuinely mistaken a photo of Smith for that of an attractive woman, and it's partly because Curt has an appealing set of legs.
• Fans with Shipping Goggles like to interpret the lyrics for "When in Love with a Blind Man" as Orzabal harbouring unrequited feelings for Smith, especially when the former has publicly acknowledged that the latter is his muse.
• Of all the Robert Wyatt compositions that the band could've covered, they chose "Sea Song", a romantic ballad brimming with lunar, night and sea metaphors. Because Orzabal takes astrology very seriously, he naturally associates all three with Smith because the latter's zodiac sign is Cancer, which is ruled by the moon and its element is water. The song is about being in love with someone who's changeable and moody, which is the hallmark of Cancerians because their emotions, like the tides, are controlled by the moon. There's no question that Roland loves Curt (platonically), so those with Shipping Goggles may read more into what the lyrics could mean to the former with regards to his feelings towards the latter.
• Orzabal had constructed his personal recording studio after Smith had quit the band, yet instead of choosing a fire element theme for the decor to reflect his own zodiac sign Leo, he names it after the Roman sea god and surrounds himself with water element imagery. Honestly, it sounds like he built a shrine (or temple might be a better word since we're touching on Classical Mythology) dedicated to his absent Cancerian muse.
  Orzabal: It was called Neptune's Kitchen, and we used a lot of copper that was doused in acid to look like it's been underwater and all the colours are sort of greens and blues like the sea. And there's a weathervane on top of the building which is a whale.
• In BBC's Classic Albums - Tears for Fears: Songs from the Big Chair documentary, Roland admits that Curt was physically attractive.
  Orzabal: We were young, we were both good-looking, especially Curt.

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