Thanks to The Music Guy, who makes me killer compilation CDs, (I know, we’re hopelessly old- fashioned like that,) I now have recurrent and strangely affectionate* thoughts about Pete(r) Doherty.
That’s the power of music, I suppose.
Switch off the lights, close your eyes and listen – and what you know, or think you know, shiny (or skanky,) about the musician, just drifts away.
Its just the music. And you.
His tatty, inflamed, druggy skin, the greasy hair, the hopeless waste of talent, the trashed flats, the messy, bloody … infected, addiction, the jail sentences, Kate!, the shambolic persona? They’re surprisingly easy to forget, in that moment.
You’re left with …this:
Sweet and bucolic. An earworm for a lazy, sunday morning, that you wouldn’t mind hanging around until lunch.
Or even beyond.
Well, I wouldn’t, anyway.
But the moment only lasts as long as the song. Then it’s back to the reality of who it is, that you’ve been listening to.
It’s the bizarre juxtaposition that gets me thinking. When you listen to Billie Holliday, or Amy Winehouse and say, Anthony Keidis from The Chilli Peppers or any number of other wastrel musos – you can hear the mess in their voices.
But, that Pete(r)?
Angelic. Innocent.
Well, everyone has to have a hook, I suppose.
* Oh. I saw that I said “affectionate thoughts.”
Not THAT affectionate!
NO, not even with the lights off.
Maybe more …motherly thoughts.
A bit sad. A bit like I wish his very nice mother (I read an interview with her once) didn’t have to see her lovely son, as sick and lost as he is.
Now that’s bizarre.
Not very rock and roll.
