Cause what they know is that 12 months ago this Doherty cat started croppin up all over the front pages, they'd missed The Libertines, all they heard were the bitter snarls flung round in its wake. They missed Up The Bracket, they missed the gigs-outside-of-gigs and the bringing folks back to the flat for to carry on playing till the cops arrived.
So there's nothing in the charts, so why am I interested? An arsehole, he is, done nothin.
Stalking Pete Doherty, screened on channel 4 earlier in the year, had been the cause of more tabloid cum-fests than anyone cares to remember long before anyone ever saw it. Fittingly, it ended up being nothing more than the headlines granted 24 frames a second.
Who The Fuck Is Pete Doherty is a different film entirely; a rebuttal to the earlier hack-job, a film that recognizes the worth of its subject (the word poet is flung around all too often in the direction of the folks behind the mic-stands - in Pete's case it's not only justified, it's pretty much official. He was a published poet long before the first few clanging chords of Vertigo hit the ear-holes), a film that sees that the tragedy here is not how The Nation's Youth ended up in thrall to a junkie hooligan glaring out the front pages of every paper in the country, it's how those tabloid wank-rags took a beautiful, remarkable, once-in-a-generation type soul and turned it into a rabid, smack-fried, model-chasing, cartoon thug.
Ironically enough, the tabloids been flingin cheap fuck left and right ever since they caught wind of the content of the film.
Loony Libertine Slashes Himself For BBC Cameras
The film doesn't feature the act, we just see Pete sat afterwards, blood pissin out a gash in his chest, hollering and laughin, occasionally kicking the camera, mumbling nonsensical giggly gibberish.
It broke my heart.
The blood drained from my face sometime in the last ten minutes, most of it on account of concern for the fella (although the footage in question is months old, which in the world of Pete is a fucking lifetime), some of it out of unspeakable rage at those bent-backed fucking cretins battering crooked fingers off of keys, bilious detestable fuck puked cross the newsstands.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Matt Mrozinski
This reads like a drunken conversation. Shane MacGowan... he's good, but there's no way that his songwriting even comes close to that of up to Dylan, Lennon, McCartney or any of the others.
Watchtower, Rolling Stone, Knockin on Heaven's Door, Let it Be, Yesterday... I could go on and on. I love the Pogues, but let's not make them out to be more than they are.
2 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Matt, thank you for the comment, but im gonna have to go ahead and disagree. I love every one of those songs you mentioned (with the exception of Knockin On Heaven's Door, which is a blight on the Pat Garret soundtrack), but lyrically if nothin else, Shane at his best IS better, in my opinion anyhow, and most likely just In Fact. The poetry of the every day, he utilises. Fairytale Of New York is heartbreaking, he grabs hold of emotions that none of the songs you mentioned right there touch. cheap sentiment and sneering bitterness, thats what Let It be and Rolling Stone deal with, respectively. and for gods sakes don't get me wrong, there are more Bob Dylan records in my collection than records by ANYONE else, but for me, Shane's songs are ABOUT something, they have a dignity, a humanity. and they're just beautiful, into the bargain.
but thank you again. an yeah, it does read a bit like a drunken conversation. guess i was all fired up after the screenin and never took time to sort the thoughts into some sort of digestable order. but what can you do?
3 - DJRadiohead
Duke, I have to say I am still firmly in the Dylan camp but I applaud you for stepping out there on this one.
A lot of people hail Dylan because you are supposed to hail him. The discussion ended years ago in the minds of a lot of people and Dylan was crowned. I think it is bold and cool and good that someone stand up and say Dylan might not be the only game in town.
Besides that, I like the drunken rant. I have enlisted you in a contest without your knowledge. Will I finish my first podcast before you finish your next?
4 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
DJ, i can hardly wait to hear it! i'm gonna have to accept that podcast 13 is not gonna be what i had expected an hoped, on account of its turned into a highly tricky proceedure, so im gonna have to push THAT all towards podcast 14, an just do a regular number for 13. im hopin to get it done shortly. a man's itchin for to play some fine tunes an swear again.
with regards Dylan, thank you, an i really hope i don't put across the wrong notion. Dylan is one of my heroes, i devour every word the fucker writes, he has made at least half a dozen of my favourite albums ever, and probably twenty odd of my favourite at the minute, but i stand by what i said. i ain't sayin that you could grab a shane lyric at random an a dylan at random or whatever an shane would come out top, no way, but there's about two albums worth of shane songs that simply wipe the floor with ANYTHIN by ANYBODY. that the image people have of Shane MacGowan has overtaken the words he writes or has written, in the public consciousness, is a great fuckin tragedy. A Fairytale Of New York is better than anythin John Lennon or anyone else ever scribbled.
5 - TimeForHeors
I would just like to say how it was a very good and interesting text to read and also how much i Love Pete Doherty!! and hope many others will respect and support him in all his music and in years to come! he is an amazing muscian and should get a little more notice for that rather than what he's doing in his spare time....its up to him what he chooses to do! i think i'll leave it here...adios x
6 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Time..., thanks for the comments, and amen to those sentiments right there.
"Did you see the stylish kids in the riot..."
7 - Fergus Flood
Words, like some of the above, can be interesting, if strung togeter in the right order.
Dylan? Would that be Dylan Thomas? "Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight"
Strange how judgmental folk can be about a young man with rare talent.
Limelighted musicians (whether "troubled" or otherwise) are no strangers to the fickleness of fans nor the peculiarities of the Press.
Pete Dohery is strutting his stuff. The media circus that follows him is an un requested occupational reality, possibly more beneficial than detrimental, but nonetheless overburdened with so-called wordsmiths who, in the main, mistakenly consider themselves to be qualified to string words together in the right order. Editors are to blame for this.
As for fans, let them have their say. Even if their words are untrained and strung together rather haphazardly.
As for those who are negatively judgemental, well, they are obviously not fans. Who is forcing them to listen to something they dislike?
Is it not reasonable to assume that the latter's rantings are not only boring, but also indicative of serious time wasting on the part of both the writers and those who manage (mea culpa) to plough through such vitriolic and childish, attention seeking babble?
8 - MeSsEd Up FaIrY
i so agree wit dat guy who wrote in bout pete i love him so much an i cried watchin him with blood all over him hes just misunderstod an if u ask me hes to good 4 kate moss the skank bitch i love pete an wish he would kick da drugs love from fairy
xXx
9 - jen
i appreciate your post. its so nice to see someone not knocking the poor guy down. pete is a beautiful songwriter and poet, his lyrics have moved me like no other from my time (as i am too young to have been from the time of dylan or even the pogues)
most people i know that dislike him have never heard up the bracket... never even heard anything by him.
i wish him the best of luck. heres hoping he can get himself back on the right track and keep the music coming!
~jen
10 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
hey folks, thanks for the comments
Fergus, you'll get no argument from me on any a those points. Sadly, your comment about how judgemental folks can be regarding a young man with rare talent stings all the more, when you consider that the majority of folks who make the judgements haven't actually listened or read a damn thing in the first place. the talent is rarely discussed because most of the words bein strung together are done so by people who haven't bothered to investigate.
Messed Up Fairy, you made me chortle right there. too good for kate moss, the skank bitch!! hahah! good to hear from you!
Jen, thank you. your talk of how the music affects you like nothin you've encountered, that's the kinda thing 90% of onlookers don't, and won't, recognize. ah well.
an incidentally, i was too young for to catch the pogues, also. t'was a retrospective oddyssey i embarked on sometimes round 1997.
By the way - just listenin to a demo version of What Katie Did, noticin that at the end, for a second or two, pete plays a few bars of Ticket To Ride. another song by another buncha fellas misunderstood back in the day...
11 - gottocleanthecarpetwhenigethome
This is rather natty, i feel, never such a full page of my heroes. shane mcgowan is the most amazing bloke, fairy tale in new york is so cripplingly human. hes warm and awkward and bony, and the fuckwits who slag him off are the reason decent people end up like that - a fact which they exploit to the full. pete doherty is also an amazing lyricist. i love the bloke. they both are amongst my all time heroes, along with dylan thomas, ian curtis and seamus heaney. bless you folks.
12 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
got to..., good to hear from you.
Seamus Heaney, eh? no disrespect to the man, but i never really made much of an effort beyond the one concerning his schoolteachers tellin him his baby brother had just died. forgive my ignorance of the title or even the lines, it's been a long time, but i remember it hit me hard.
other than that, i just figured he wrote a lot about rural Northern Ireland, an since i LIVE in rural Northern Ireland, i didn't much feel like readin poetry about it. i always found it incredibly drab, in fact, that whole farmin community thing that Heaney seems, or SEEMED fascinated by. maybe i'll give him another go one a these days.
13 - ihavetoldyoubeforeiamnotalobster
Irish chap, eh? me whole familys oirish, tho southern. not hard to believe with a name like farrell. anychow. heaney has a drunken elegance i love, he was a real poet. i would advise getting into the chap, like i say, hes one of my heroes. i know what you mean about the repetition, he can be rather provincial, but he has such an ease with words.
are you a fan of dylan thomas, captain? aha, a walt whitman referance, who is also a fecking genius.
14 - Dave Martin
Quick question, if you would be so kind...
What is the name of the final song played at the end of the BBC documentary? The Dylan comparisons came strong for me at that point...
15 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
i have told you before... i ain't read much of Dylan Thomas, but what i have read i thought was beautiful. i ain't been that well-read in poetry in general, in fact. folks like Bertolt Brecht an William Blake i adore, but in the grand scheme i'm shockingly ignorant of much work goin on, or that has gone on.
Dave, i'll need to watch the end again. i'll get back to you with that, unless you find out sooner.
16 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Dave, much as it pains me to relate, i have no idea what that song is. it's beautiful an ragged an catchy as hell, an it looks like it ain't been recorded yet, at least not on any of the things i have. it's definately not on Shaking And Withdrawn Megamix, Acoustic Lullaby or Untitled.
anyone know?
17 - emily
exactly
18 - chris Kyle
Think its getting increasingly hard to continue defending Pete I'm afraid. Up until recently I was a die hard fan but its fizzling. Met him a couple of times and he was a total gent but he now resembles the last person on earth you'd want to do drugs with..a total mess! If he was releasing beautiful records worthy of the praise he has recieved in the past that served to justify his 'genius' monicker I still could carry on defending him but lets face it, he is taking a year to release anything and its nearly all shit! Seen Babyhambles a few times and their bland screechy tunes are not worthing of Pete. He needs to ditch the unbelievably dreadful members of Babyshambles, strap on a bloody guitar and do it solo............
19 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Chris, i hear these kinda sentiments a lot. i will certainly agree that to hear the best of his songwriting (other than the two Libertines records), it's best to head for those acoustic demos. but there's somethin bout that sinister vibe Babyshambles got goin on that just gets me in the gut. East Of Eden, for example, a b-side on Fuck Forever, the acoustic version is fragile and beautiful, the babyshambles version is also fragile, but in a kinda half-asleep, semi-conscious manner. its sounds like its gonna take a knife to the throat any second, an maybe we need shit like that now an again. energy counts for a lot, i think, and Babyshambles have more than any sane ammount.
but it is rather distressing to watch, say, footage of The Libertines a year an a half ago, Pete chortlin an jokin, an then see him nowadays, unsure of what the hell he's about to say, if he'll say anything or just mutter.
one thing that i did find pleasing though was that the BBC doc got a good dose a that charm across.
the bit when he's talkin bout how he was always able to get crack becuase he always had a fiddle on.
"i'm not the best guitarist in the world, but i could always play the fiddle..."
brilliant
20 - BackToBasics
I'd just like to say that I'm really impressed at the calibre of all the responses, with no slagging Doherty off for no reason. I agree with everyone to a certain extent, but for myself, Pete just won't reach the former heights of the Libertines. Pete 'n' Carl wrote the very best songs I have ever heard, better than any new Babyshambles stuff (although I do like it a lot). Ably backed by John and Gary, you had the best rock band in the history of music, and a truly loveable one at that. Until the reunion happens, we'll never get the same standard of music. Monkey Casino v The Delaney? Even Killamangiro v Up The Bracket. I know where my heart is.
21 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Back To Basics (incidentally, is that a Billy Bragg reference?), thanks for your thoughts. for the most part i agree with you, in fact for all the part i agree with you. The Libertines work is definatley in a different league to a lot of the Babyshambles stuff, but i still love the Babyshambles stuff, nonetheless. you make an interesting point about the libs being lovable. thats totally right. you could imagine hangin out with them, goin round to the gigs in the flats an just keepin with it for months one end, there was a love about it all. Babyshambles seems much darker. i dunno that i'd WANT to be in the company of em for too long. Of course, i gotta stress, if Pete suggested headin for a week in some flat in St Petersberg, well, i'd be there.
22 - phil
aye, that last track on that documentary was f**kin class. never heard him before, just thought he was overhyped in the papers but his acoustic stuff is funny, beautiful and refreshing to hear. i hope he does a cover of 'just say no'.
23 - Dave
Aaron, Duke De Mondo, thanks for checking into that song for me buddy...
The BBC documentary, I thought, was highly reminiscent of "Don't look back". While it is true that many tour documentaries necessarily invoke the feel of "Don't look back", the portrait of Doherty as a powerful, talented, iconic focus for a generation, framed by a media maelstrom partly of his own making, screams of Dylan in '65 and '66. Lets hope he doesn't have a motorbike...
24 - Lotus
How fantastic Pete Doherty is and what an inspiration for everyone who owns a brain cell and isn't afraid to use it. Judge him on his music, his art and clever wordsmithery, don't buy into the general misconceptions of a capitalist state. Call it what you like: soul, spirit, poetry, passion, I think more people know what he's about than he realises and we applaud him for it. Do what makes you happy Pete xxx
25 - dom
is there anyway i can get a hold of this? i live in the states show i cant see it. i really wanna see it badly.thanks.