The authors set out to illustrate the connection between creativity and sexuality in the works of songwriter Cole Porter and playwright/author/songwriter Noel Coward. Although both men were homosexuals, it was necessary in the era in which they lived to camouflage their sexuality, and they redirected that repression into their work, each in his individual way. The analyses of Porter’s songs, many of which entered the jazz standards repertoire, are of particular interest. Morella and Mazzei make their case by examining the lives and works of the two men against the historical backdrop of two world wars and changing sexual mores. While homosexual references in their works were inferred or implied--never explicit and often in double entendres--they paved the way for later lyricists and playwrights to deal more openly with the subject.