The Libertines – Radio America
Here comes another blog about a song I like. As before, you can click the song’s title in order to hear it.
Currently Playing: The Libertines – Radio America
This is but one of twelve songs on an album that came out late last year– an album I already number among my favorite records ever, as evidenced by its place on the list of my favorite albums in a recent blog.
The entire record is, as the title suggests, a punk rock punch to the throat. (“Up the bracket” is slang for just that, a throat punch.) How could it not be? Mick Jones was involved in the production for goodness sake, so naturally it rocks hard. The one real exception is the song I’m listening to right now, “Radio America.”
When Up the Bracket came out, I played this song on repeat for like days on end. This drove Fizzy crazy, but I couldn’t get enough of it. I am playing it again today; on repeat, of course. It’s one of a handful of songs, albeit a large handful, that I seem to need to hear at least five times in a row lest I feel unsatisfied.
This is not to say that I don’t enjoy the rest of the record. “The Boys in the Band” and “Time for Heroes” are other favorites, and if anything “Time for Heroes” is my favorite of the bunch, but “Radio America” is this great moment of calm on an otherwise frenetic record. I’m a big fan of love songs that avoid the cheesiness to which most fall prey. There’s something beautiful about subtle, veiled lyrics and recurring themes that run through an entire album. This is why I dislike modern-day R&B music so much: it’s too damned literal. One can say “I love you” without spelling it out; one can also imply a desire to sleep with the object of one’s affection without saying “I wanna’ get with you.” It takes a much more clever poet to convey said sentiments without beating the reader/ listener over the head with them. And while subtle and poet are not words one typically uses when discussing Pete Doherty, in this case I find them to be very appropriate.
Granted, Up the Bracket is so much more than an indie punk rock record. In between the drunken fights and heroin injections are the scars of class warfare and the awkward uncertainties of someone posturing as much more than he inwardly believes himself to be. And right in the midst of it all is a heartfelt song of love.
And they watched old films flicker
Across the old palace movie screen
Crying, “What a shame as she slipped in the rain
The poor dancing girl, well she won’t dance again.”
And they tell me this was a transmission
To take my love, my love to you
And only to you.
Music
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British, Indie Rock, Music, Punk Rock
Peter Doherty is a pretty recognized poet whose poetry won a contest and sent him to Russia at the tender age of 16-17. :)
@candice, Goes to show you what little I knew of Pete Doherty six years ago. I stand corrected on the poetry half of the equation, but stand by my assertion that subtle is not an apt word for the fellow.
@Peasprout, He’s definitely not subtle(not in his dior homme & trilby at least) & that’s part of his charm. But he writes beautiful poetry.