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CONTENTS Libertine Stories ................. p. 3 My Libertine London ................. p. 7 Across The Silence (Artwork) ............... p. 9 New Songs On Old Guitars .............. p. 10 Libertines In Poppies (Artwork) ...... p. 14 Threads Of Rebellion ................ p. 15 The Brilliant Private Investigators I (Artwork) .... p. 19 In My Cinematic Mind ............... p. 20 The Brilliant Private Investigators II (Artwork) ..... p. 23 The Unfathomable Fate Of Peter (Poem) .......... p. 24 The Brilliant Private Investigators III (Artwork) ....... p. 26 The Fever of the World: Up The Bracket vs. Lyrical Ballads ............... p. 27 Despatches (Poem) ........ p. 32 The Brilliant Private Investigators – Comic (Artwork) .............. p. 33 Album #4 (Poem) ................. p. 34 Libertine Stories ................. p. 35
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LIBERTINE STORIES I started keeping a journal shortly after I began listening to The Libertines, and I have several months of entries that mention them in some way. Here are a few excerpts, edited slightly for foolishness: August 26th, 2015, 10am: "Faith in love and music, in some place better than here but also some place that is here. Glimpsing Arcadia through the cracks….To expand: someone else said ‘it was like a jailbreak, and I didn’t even know I was in prison.’ And that’s pretty accurate. I never did reckless stuff in high school, never ‘lived free’, and now halfway through college and a year from 20 I find myself worrying constantly that I will never actually enjoy my youth - because of who I am, what I have to do etc. The Libertines make me feel the opposite. Like I’m experiencing so much of the parts of life I didn’t get to have, just by listening to their music. They take care of many of my regrets, and inspire me to live a little more. I’m quite thankful for that, you know. Up the Bracket is 13 years old but it doesn’t feel nostalgic, it puts me firmly in the moment. That’s what I need. To quote Annie Dillard: ‘there was never a more holy age than ours, and never a less.’ The Libertines remind me of that.” September 19th, 2015: “…been thinking about the ‘do it for the Albion’ bit in Threepenny Memoir. Imagine the faith it takes for that to inspire…for that to be your world?! It’s sharp-edged sweet to even imagine living like that….But at the same time, I think I do believe in it to some extent. Why else would I look for glimpses of Arcadia? Why else would finding them fortify me? Yes, I must believe, or I want to believe.” October 29th, 2015: “Thinking of Arcadia, mostly." -
Helen
➳ Sometimes I feel like I spent my whole life dancing around The Libertines. They came to me in snippets; Daily Mail articles glimpsed upside down whilst sitting opposite my grandfather, overheard snatches of songs on the radio, a brief segment in a documentary. I easily bought into the skinny jean, trilby, indie rock image that, looking back, was clearly influenced by them. Despite all this, though, my first real interest in them came later, after they had broken up and before even the earliest rumblings of a reunion, in 2008. I read a music article, which lead to another article, which finally lead to an old review of the band which described them, roughly, as the contradictory, homoerotic clash between a dirty rockstar and a proper English gentleman - it was intriguing and dramatic and romantic, and I must have read their wikipedia page at least three times before I went to bed that night. The wistfulness of it all, as I caught myself up on the fights and the nights, really snagged my imagination; everything about this band was almost’s and maybe’s, what-if’s and just barely missed chances. It was love-and-hate passion and excess, fatal flaws, and a grand, dirty tragedy played out by people who were impossibly 3
real. They existed in a kind of literary domain of foreshadowing and destiny. All four of the band members acted as foils to each other on occasion, and there was a supporting cast of divisive, ambiguous, and fascinating background characters. I couldn’t help but interpret and examine The Libertines, and everything that surrounded them, as a novel, rather than a real band. I don’t even remember listening to the songs that much back then. Because of this my passion fizzled out, and the eventual reunions, sharp reminders of the actual existence of these people in my awkward, uncomfortable world, a world where your story doesn’t end but just kind of goes on, didn’t interest me. It would have been easy for me to slip away into new obsessions, but it seemed that The Libertines weren’t done with me. I was a casual fan, and a very different person, by the time Gunga Din was released, and I’ll always owe my renewed love for the band to that song. I was able to appreciate it as just a song. It wasn’t some artifact or plot device, just piece of music by a very good band. It’s also the song that introduced my sister to The Libertines, and we both spent that whole summer acquainting, and reacquainting, ourselves with their back catalogue. The whole thing suddenly felt hopeful, and the going-on of the story wasn’t boring and predictable, it was actually, amazingly, fun. I know that my love for The Libertines now is deeper than before, and I hope that it’s more understanding and human, but they still have a magic to them, sort of real, sort of mythical, and exciting just for being so liminal. Are all of the stories they tell real? Who cares. The Libertines aren’t just a crushingly poetic, romantic legend, they’re a band that it somehow feels acceptable to describe in such an over-the-top way. Finding something that matters so much that I’m willing to be ridiculous and pretentious in my enjoyment of it is actually pretty important, and looking back at my on and off relationship with them, and their curiously pervasive influence on me, kind of makes my life feel a little more literary too. -
Beth
➳ I am nineteen years old when the love of my life tells me to listen to this band, this incredible band, Aisu. They’re the Libertines, and they’re going to change your life. I swear to you. I close my eyes, and the music looks like her. I see guitar arpeggios, but I also see dark, wild hair and chipped green nail-polish. I am breathless. It doesn’t take very long for me to get on a first-name basis with the boys. Gaz bangs the drums, as it were, and John plucks mercilessly at my heartstrings. They’re rhythm section magic. Pete and Carlwhose voices make me gasp the first time I hear them; whose voices I will soon be able to identify without a moment’s hesitation- stumble through choruses about people with souls and fears and dreams just like mine with an earnestness that makes my heart ache. Sometimes, of course, it’s with excellent comic timing that makes me laugh in delight. Sometimes it’s with strained sighs that make me blush. Sometimes it’s with graceful dives from one internal rhyme 4
to the next, transfiguring a song from rock anthem to poetry. The tracks flit through my ears, into my brain. They refuse to leave. It’s easy to get caught up in the paraphernalia: the extended press coverage, the scandals, the mythmaking. But these things are of little importance, because what the music- the art at the heart of it all- offers is almost holy; it is pure and immediate abandon. I live in a city in southern India that spins too fast for me to catch up to, but when I dance with my eyes closed to Don’t Look Back into The Sun on my open veranda, right then- right at that moment- I feel like I can outrun anything. To her credit, it turns out that while the love of my life will be wrong about a lot of things, she won’t be wrong about the Libertines and their irrevocable hold on me. She will be wrong when she says that we have forever ahead of us, and she’s always been wrong about the pronunciation of the word ‘bruschetta’. But she won’t be wrong about the Libertines. She won’t be wrong about that one. I’ll lose her, but I’ll get to keep this band’s seemingly endless reserves of energy, their wide-eyed euphoria. I’ll lose her, but I’ll get to keep their incredible stories of pipe dreams, of youthful protest, of arcadia, of love gone horribly right. I’ll lose her, but I’ll get to keep her music- even when the lights go out. -
Aisu
➳ The first time I properly listened to The Libertines was on a rainy afternoon in mid-December 2013. My best friend at the time was obsessed with them, he had this somewhat endearing habit of briefly getting into things that I had no interest in and somehow dragging me along for the ride. The first time I heard them, in the form of a live version of Can't Stand Me Now, I wasn't particularly impressed. Neither the song nor the sentiment had struck me as unique or worth listening to more than once. It took me about a year to really understand just how wrong my first impression had been. I think I was vaguely aware of Peter Doherty for some time but I barely knew anything about him, having no interest in someone with his reputation. Though there were certainly moments when the media spoke kindly of him and his artistic sensibilities, it never lasted very long. Carl remained a mystery for a longer time, even after I started learning their history little by little. It wasn't until October 2014, when I bought Threepenny Memoir on a whim, that I found myself fully immersed. Their story seemed impossible, too intense, too perfect, the sort of thing that simply doesn’t happen in real life and yet it had. That was probably what really sealed the deal for me. The Libertines were larger than life, they were, even with the fights and the controversies, everything I dreamed of being.
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When I first discovered them though, the band was also very much dead. A proper reunion seemed impossible, even if their 2010 reunion had started to pave the road towards an uncertain future and even if those infamous 2014 shows seemed to signal something much bigger, I couldn't quite believe it. My interest in them grew stronger as time passed and their first two albums soon became a great source of comfort, as did much of the rest of Peter's and Carl's discography. Summer 2015 and Glastonbury once again changed everything for me. I felt like I was part of something, I felt like we were experiencing a bit of the good old days, we, the newer fans and the newly reunited band, were now part of history. A year later and my love for them is more powerful than ever. To quote Carl in one of his more sentimental moments, "We'll be Libertines until the day we die". -
Alissa
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MY LIBERTINE LONDON By Alex
For me London is many things, my home, my city, the place I am proud to live in but the first thing I always think about whenever it is brought up is The Libertines. It is the city they met in and a city which they have always held dear to their hearts and here are few of the locations I associate with them the most. The place I have to mention first is Bethnal Green. Within this area of east London there are two hugely important places in the story of The Libertines. Firstly you have the Albion Rooms at 112a Teesdale Street. This is the flat where Pete Doherty and Carl Barât once lived and would hold their now infamous guerilla gigs. They would often advertise these gigs one afternoon on an internet forum and by 7pm that night there’d be a queue of people waiting to hand over their £10 note and be let into a little flat to be treated with an intimate performance of their favourite songs and, if they were lucky, they might be able to take a souvenir with them. Just around the corner from the Albion Rooms is Grove Passage, where The Libertines and Roger Sargent shot the music video for “Up The Bracket”, the first single released by The Libertines. Now known as Up The Bracket Alley, Grove Passage is covered with tributes to the band. These range from the odd lyric that covers one brick to whole poems written out and stencilled murals and personal messages. This one passage has become a place of pilgrimage for Libertines from all over the world. When I was last there I saw messages from such far flung places as Japan and Argentina and I’m sure many more locations around the world. The next place that I feel I have to mention is, of course, Hyde Park. Hyde Park was the scene of the second reunion and is still the biggest audience that The Libertines have played too. However if you were to turn back time about a decade a young Pete Doherty and Carl Barat could have been found frollicking around in a fountain trying to get money. In 2014 they played a show to approximate 60,000 fans. Although the show didn’t go without trouble it is still a night that will always be crucial in the story of the band and particularly in relation to London. Another place linked to reunions is The Booglaoo in Highgate. On 31st March 2010 The Libertines held a press conference at the Booglaoo to talk about their upcoming shows at Reading and Leeds festivals and performed an impromptu set. Six years later The Libertines returned to The Boogaloo to play a secret show in front of 150 fans on 20th July 2016. The whole day was like a return to the old days of the Albion Rooms and I’m sure a night those who were there will never forget. For me though the most important part of a Libertine London is Alexandra Palace and this is purely for selfish reasons. Alexandra Palace is the first place I got to see my favourite band live. Back in September 2014, after they played Hyde Park, The Libertines played 3 packed out gigs at the 10,000 capacity venue in north London. From the very first chord played to the last shouts from Gary Powell into the microphone the crowd were enamoured and for many others like me this sweaty hall in North London took over a small corner of their hearts. I have loved The Libertines since I was six years old. Growing up in and around the city that is steeped in so much of the bands history has been a pleasure and now I know more about these places they are even more special. I know I have missed out loads of places in writing this article, some insignificant like The Prince Charles Cinema and some of great importance such as The Dublin Castle where a week of events titled ‘Somewhere Over The Railings’ took place to celebrate the 7
release of “Anthems For Doomed Youth” Rock ‘n’ Roll Rescue Charity shop which was turned into The Bucket Shop or The Forum in Kentish Town where the band played two warm up gigs before Reading and Leeds festivals in 2010 but these are the places that are most significant to me. Some I haven’t been to but others I have and whenever I step foot anywhere near them something changes in me. A warmth shoots up my spine and I feel at home. I live in a Libertine London and I love it.
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NEW SONGS ON OLD GUITARS By Alissa
The elusive and captivating nature of The Libertines, more myth than band with their history of heartbreak and shattered dreams, is aided by their ever-changing lyrics. A work of art is meant to resonate through history, to evolve and adapt and their heartfelt reunion certainly hasn’t stopped them from changing and reshaping the songs they’ve sung for so long. Whether the different versions exist for their fans’ benefit or more likely, simply show their changed feelings and opinions, it’s still bound to be a fascinating aspect of The Libertines, one that is worth taking a closer look at.
Can’t Stand Me Now Branding Session
“Teach me how to play guitar/hold my cigarette like a superstar/teach me how to steal car” and “I read every review/They all prefer you”, two additional verses which don’t seem to replace anything from the album version.
Rolling Stone Session
Title changed to “You Can’t Stand Me”, “So I got it the wrong way round/If I cut you out it’s cause I blamed it on the brown” instead of “You’ve got it the wrong way round/You shut me up and blamed it on the brown”.
Peter Solo Version
“There was an ending fitting for the start” instead of “An ending fitting for the start”, “Tried to blame it on the brown” instead of “Blamed it on the brown”.
Carl Solo Version
“Did I get it the wrong way round?/Kept you out and blamed it on the brown” instead of “You've got it the wrong way round/You shut me up and blamed it on the brown”, “All those words, they ain’t true” instead of “I’m still in love with you” (although this change has become rather common in live shows).
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The Good Old Days Live Versions
“Well if Elvis, he was the king, had his piece of the pie/(Priscilla was the name of his latest flame)/(What a lame name for his latest flame) /Well now his century's over I'm having mine”, additional verses sang only during live versions.
Babyshambles Sessions
Peter whispers “get a tattoo” in response to the “a list of things we said we’d do tomorrow” lyrics.
Branding Session/Some Live Versions
“The Arcadian dream has fallen through/But the Albion has no remorse /'Cause she was born outside the light in a graveyard blue/I was born up in the north” instead of “The Arcadian dream has fallen through/But the Albion sails on course/So man the decks and hoist the rigging/Because the Pigman's found the source”.
Peter Solo Version
“I know these are the good old days” instead of simply “These are the good old days”, “There’s twelve frenchmen on the oars” instead of “There’s twelve rude boys on the oars”.
What Became of The Likely Lads EP Version
"And all those nights you were so wrong/I would hold you for so long and say you're not so bad", additional verse right after “That’s filled the dreams we have”.
Carl Solo Version (Oui FM Acoustic)
“They sold the rights to all the wrongs/And then you’re needing a new song/That would be quite sad” instead of “They sold the rights to all the wrongs/And when they knew you'd give me songs/Welcome back, I sang”, “We all had the ones/We had the world/We had the songs/It was a dream he had” instead of “We all bought the ones/We taught 'em all we wrote the songs/That's filled with dreams we have”,
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“We all had the ones/We had the world/We had the songs/We want the screaming fans/And all those nights you were so wrong/And I would hold him for so long and say you’re not so bad” before the penultimate verse.
Peter Solo Version
“We wrote the song/We told the world/Of all the fun we had” instead of “We all bought the ones/We taught 'em all we wrote the songs/That's filled with dreams we have”, “What became of all those dreams we had?” instead of “What became of the dreams we had?”.
Ballad of Grimaldi The Liverpool Session (Peter Solo)
“We won’t be fighting in the street” instead of “No fighting again tonight”, “You’ll just know they’ll crush and burn” instead of the more simple “You know they'll crash and burn”.
Death Fires Burn at Night EP/Live Versions (Carl Solo)
“Get away from this plastic romance” instead of “Get away from this hollow romance”, “Your love just crumbles in my hands” instead of “For love just crumbles in my hands”, “St. Jude may come to me, hear my plea, see me on my bended knee” instead of “St. Jude might hear my pleas and see me on my knees”, “You laugh and fall just like Grimaldi/And you look like Baby Jane” instead of “I laugh and fall just like Grimaldi/You wear your make-up llike Baby Jane”, The “You’ll tell me what you want and I’ll avoid it” verse is repeated again after the “Baby Jane” verse, “He knows I adore...her/They’ll be fighting again tonight just like the last, it was not right/And you know they’ll be fighting in the streets/From the last time till we meet” replaced “Because she knows how I adore you/We won't be fighting again tonight”, “I walked the streets all of my life/And now I’m doing it again/.../You may never be the same” instead of “I walked these streets all of my life/The fear and hope at every turn/She took him to Stepney and made him a wife”.
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France Babyshambles Sessions
“I rememer your eyes in that fine shade of brown” instead of “I remember your eyes in that unique shade of brown”.
Peter Solo
“Well I remember your eyes that unique shade of blue/These brown eyes of mine, they stay closed” replaced “So I remember your eyes that unique shade of brown/While these blue eyes of mine, they stay closed”.
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THREADS OF REBELLION By Shawn Ghost
The Libertines and the Sex Pistols are international icons of British rock music, and they share common elements deserving of a second glance. The Libertines can be seen as direct descendants of the Sex Pistols. Many parallels run between their careers and the ways their work was received by the general public. With a dash of luck, people will still be listening to and remembering their adventures many decades from now and on. In the 1970’s, the Sex Pistols spearheaded the Punk Rock movement in London. Their music howled with desperate fury, and their accompanying personas delivered an image that caused considerable public panic, especially in the UK. Unfortunate violence and addiction issues hampered their performances and progress. The ensuing chaos of their rapid ascent contributed to the pressure that caused the group to fold after only one studio album, the seminal Never Mind the Bullocks: Here’s The Sex Pistols. The Pistols were one of those comets that blaze intensely for only a short time, but the embers left in their wake light thousands of fires that burn on into the future. At their musical core, the dozenor-so songs they created remain brilliant blasts of scathing energy and the sound has aged well over the past 40 years. Their sonic imprint derived from a viewpoint representing a youth culture that was so overlooked at the time in the musical landscape that it somehow demanded to be heard. Revolutions don’t happen on any set schedule. They rise from the stagnation of mediocrity every once in a while, so fresh young faces of the next wave can find their own heroes and in doing so be turned on to the army of noble artists throughout history. The best, most resonant cultural movements always spring from unexpected voices of the grassroots. In the early 2000’s the clock was set for another shift. A band of mercurial chancers called The Libertines hustled their way from the gutters to the podiums of awards shows, the upper rungs of the sales charts and the world stage. Formed and fronted by eccentric leaders Pete Doherty and Carl Barat, they joined with drummer Gary Powell and bassist John Hassall bring their debut album Up The Bracket into the sunlight in 2002. Not only did boys and girls with a glint in their eye start wearing their hair and leather jackets differently, they looked at their own notebooks of poetry more seriously, and were more eager in their stride picking up the acoustic guitar they were still learning to play. The pop and rock music scenes of the late nineties into the early aughts were so droll, tepid, mundane and fatigued that it would be a further waste of words to list the offenders and accurately portray the utter boredom. Like the Pistols, the Libertines were not the very first stars of the new scene, but their appearance helped galvanize it. The Ramones were the champions while the Pistols were still practicing and The Strokes were indie rock sensations before the Libertines were cover stars. Beyond their NYC pals, absolutely no one in 2000-2002 was blowing up in music by wearing tight vintage clothes and thrashing about with guitars. For the following half decade, “Indie Rock” was the chosen label to be drawn up and packaged for the masses, the same way Alternative, Grunge, New Wave, Heavy Metal and Punk all were. These groupings will always be comprised of mostly passing posers with nothing to offer, some viable winners worth your time, and just a few epic geniuses who define the genre. This ratio is just like any decent party in reality. 15
The Libertines are the cornerstone of modern indie punk rock. All labels are reductive, but there’s no denying they produced two classic albums before unwelcome drama smashed their original synergy in 2004. It has since been regained, but to date they’ve been apart longer than they’ve been together. The high quality of their remarkable work gave distinct vision to thousands of hopeful dreamers around the globe looking to start something new in rock music. ROSES GROWN FROM CONCRETE Without providing in-depth retellings of their exact origins, both groups were created by young men with vision who did not come from economically privileged or well-connected backgrounds. The Sex Pistols were prodded together and named by an Artful Dodger-esque retro clothing salesman named Malcolm McLaren. He had some income flowing from the retail outlet he co-owned with fashion maverick Vivienne Westwood, but it was by no means a thriving venture until after the Pistols hit big. The individual band members came from slightly different levels of prosperity, but at the time they started out they had little more than dirt-cheap speed, street smarts and ambition in their pockets. Guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook were unashamed to admit they had resorted to outright thievery at times. One of their boldest exploits involved the permanent borrowing of pricey guitars and amplifiers from none other than David Bowie on a London stop of the Ziggy Stardust tour. Singer Johnny Rotten (born John Lydon) grew up in the midst of bitter poverty that admittedly scarred him for life, providing much of the fuel that fired his confrontational lyricism. In the early days of the Pistols coming together, Rotten lived in a squat with (second after Glen Matlock) bassist Sid Vicious. Libertines founding frontmen Carl Barat and Pete Doherty also spent formative years together squatting in various abandoned tenements. They didn’t have any family bank accounts to fall back on or trusts to siphon. They didn’t fit the preconceived mold of popular music. They weren’t expecting to be successful, by any one, including themselves most of the time. Both groups had managers that helped connect the dots of their strategies, but they were not market-tested, target demographic approved, pie-chart projected revenues products. It’s no secret or theory that most of the music business is, has been and always will be uninspired and formulaic. It’s always worth celebrating when flowers spring from pavement cracks in the street. Before they were recording artists, Carl and Pete worked odd jobs in theaters, grave yards and salad factories. They sometimes expanded their meager incomes by distributing medications not found in stores. They lived in a variety of strange situations other than squats, and honed their craft playing poorly attended gigs around the fringes of the city. They eagerly played with a drummer a solid thirty-plus years their senior called Mr. Razzcocks because that was the best they had going. They hosted open mic nights with bizarre performance artists and played at retirement homes. Legend has it that one dear old soul actually departed at one of these gigs. They were close to being broken up before The Strokes breezed in and gave them (and everyone) a sharp jolt of realization that punchy new bands with a snappy smirk could be commercially viable. They put their heads together to draft a new batch of faster, edgier songs, the NME soon sang their praises and they were off to the races, heavily favored contenders for rock star crowns. In retrospect it seems all predestined, but if you lined up both groups a year before they really broke onto the scene, it would be hard to find anyone with the foresight to predict their eventual popularity. The only exceptions would probably be their managers, Malcolm McLaren and Banny 16
Pootschi. They were long shots and underdogs. This genuine authenticity translated well to winning over new fans. THE DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD Both bands had tumultuous relationships with the press. The media attention that helped them at the start of their careers also brought them reams of problems later on. Intentionally or not, their lifestyles directly antagonized mainstream society. A defining moment for the Sex Pistols was when they appeared on a very mainstream evening television program hosted by a saucy presenter named Bill Grundy. After some awkward moments and condescending banter, Steve Jones let fly with flurry of F-bombs aimed at Grundy, and the entire country promptly freaked out. The day before, very few people outside the London underground knew who they were. The day after the show aired, nearly everyone in Britain knew the name of the band and had varying opinions on their controversial manners. The press soon realized they had a gold mine on their hands because the group was considered shocking and offensive. They went all-in on trying to scare readers with the threat of Punk Rock, and the over-dramatic implications that the rise of this subculture was indicative of the collapse of society. Articles would generally skim over the musical aspects of the Pistols in favor of focusing on lovely details like public vomiting, the punk crowds penchant for constant spitting with malicious intent (or ‘gobbing’, as the vile habit came to be known), and fashion that was designed to identify the wearer as a non-conformist radical flipping off pretty much everyone and everything. One of the best headlines from the time about the public perception of the band was “The Filth And The Fury”. This sudden attention brought them thousands of new fans and thousands of dollars from competing record companies eager to cash in on the next big thing. It made the Sex Pistols the literal poster boys of Punk Rock, a fact that many musicians and writers active at the time are still complaining about today, in many cases rightly so. The media always has a disappointing tendency of skipping over the good to promote the cheap, vulgar and tantalizing. Bad news and sex sells! But the subjects suffer as they’re portrayed in caricature, and the conclusions of the quick-to-judge and easily-led mainstream audience often drifts to the negative. Punk was not all about safety pins in your face and gobbing, but unfortunately many people came to see it that way. It’s fair to say the band was mocked and vilified in general. Johnny Rotten was physically assaulted more than once by savage thugs. He was attacked for being a famous singer the perpetrators felt had disrespected an entire nation with his acerbic wit on “God Save The Queen” and “Anarchy In The UK”. On the worst occasion Rotten’s leg was actually hacked up with a machete, and he credits his leather trousers as the only thing that saved him from permanent, serious damage. The Sex Pistols were hyped and hounded, questioned and crowed at for long enough that it took the fun out of everything. Once Sid Vicious swan-dived into heroin addiction, their future was truly doomed. After a less than thrilling San Francisco show in January 1978, they called it quits and did not part fondly. The Libertines never had a Bill Grundy moment to boast of, but they fell into a similar cycle of gaining attention for being unapologetically anti-mainstream, having huge success, then being dogged for it and parodied to the point where interviews became to seem like forced public torture sessions. Pete Doherty was the first rock star of the new century to talk about drug use with open candor. It 17
was refreshingly honest initially, as Pete detailed activities to reporters most people are uncomfortable considering, much less engaging in and then describing for thousands of strangers to know about. Again, it was rather shocking. It’s accepted knowledge that artists in general enjoy being chemically free-spirited, but for a young singer in the first stages of a promising career to proclaim a love affair with crack and heroin, it was unconventional and disheartening. Rebellious honesty is usually a plus deserving of praise. Health concerns for addiction in those degrees are difficult to manage or overlook, as the ensuing years proved. The Libertines broke up in 2004 because of unresolved band member tension. These issues were amplified by articles that epitomized gossip and spiteful speculation. Libertines fans sleep soundly now that a golden happy ending has been confirmed in recent years by epic reunion tours and beautiful new music. These victories stand in stark contrast with the period of 2004 - 2009, during which the tabloid feeding frenzy went overboard to make life for Pete Doherty as unpleasant as possible. A relationship with one of the worlds most famous fashion models provided the missing element needed to fulfill the cliche of scandal guaranteed to excite and irritate readers and viewers everywhere. There’s an old show business saying that there’s no such thing as bad press. As more and more people talked about Pete Doherty, new fans were exposed to the Libertines music. The media buzz did ramp up fan excitement, as shows sold out and adoring crowds swelled in size. But the tipping point is hard to define, where the public image starts to outweigh and inhibit the creation of art, rather than promote and expose it to a wider audience. Another common bond these bands share is their reverent fanbase. Libertines and Pistols fans are the breed of dedicated for-lifers that get tattooed in honor of their musical heroes and champion them through thick and thin. Many fans caught the wave of inspiration full-on and started their own groups. Kurt Cobain told the story of browsing through rock magazines and being startled by landing on photos of Johnny and company. The Sex Pistols were a vanguard for him and many others, pointing toward bold new sounds that had yet to be explored. This is the often-misunderstood heart of Punk at it’s best. The list of bands formed in the aftermath of the Libertines is long and still growing. They’re a clarion call to making your own myths flower into reality through stubborn ideals of freedom and romance. Most artists are lucky to have a career of any kind. Fewer still produce anything worthy of the term legacy. The Pistols and the Libertines were and are the Real Thing, creators of art very much of the time it was made yet powerful enough to transcend it. Their albums contain history and are surrounded by narratives more than one writer has felt compelled to retell in hardcover form. The original line ups of the Sex Pistols and the Libertines did actually play one live show together at a venue called Crystal Palace, with the vets headlining and the upstarts opening. Carl Barat recounted the details of their brief but memorable interactions in his excellent auto-biography Three Penny Memoir. You are walking one step closer into a vibrant community of like-minded dreamers and rabblerousers when you declare your kinship with these bands. When you’re a Sex Pistols or Libertines fan, it means something extra special to you. It’s a burst of confidence for your identity, an honor badge of your personality displaying your exquisitely refined taste. Wear and share it proudly.
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IN MY CINEMATIC MIND (or, things that remind us of The Libertines) By Alissa & Beth
POETRY - Suicide in The Trenches (Siegfried Sassoon) - In Paris With You (James Fenton) - Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3 (William Wordsworth) - The Man Who Would Be King, Gunga Din (Rudyard Kipling) - A Shropshire Lad (A.E Housman) - The Lady Of Shalott (Lord Tennyson) - From The First Notebook (Anna Ahkmatova) - A Season In Hell (Arthur Rimbaud) - Two Young Men, 23 to 24 Years Old (C. P Cavafy) - The Flowers Of Evil (Charles Baudelaire) - You Must Not Wonder, Though You Think It Strange (George Gascoigne) - Salome Maloney (John Cooper Clarke) - Ode On a Grecian Urn (John Keats) - Insomnia (Marina Tsvetaeva) - When The Lamp Is Shattered (Percy Shelley) - Anthem For a Doomed Youth, Dulce et Decorum Est (Wilfred Owen) - Broken Love, Jerusalem, London (William Blake) - The Love-Hat Relationship (Aaron Belz) - Wild Orphan (Allen Ginsberg) - Blues For Sister Sally (Lenore Kandel)
PROSE -
Confessions of a Child of the Century (Alfred De Musset) Love on the Dole (Arthur Greenwood) The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand) The Iceman Cometh (Eugene O’Neil) Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh) Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) Brighton Rock, Heart Of The Matter (Graham Greene) The Open Window (Saki) Ulysses (James Joyce) Opium (Jean Cocteau) Our Lady Of The Flowers, The Thief’s Journal (Jean Genet) Lady Don’t Fall Backwards (Joan Le Mesurier) The Magus (John Fowles) East of Eden (John Steinbeck) 20
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Against Nature (Joris-Karl Huysmans) Catch 22 (Joseph Heller) Billy Liar (Keith Waterhouse) Wind In The Willows (Kenneth Graham) Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass (Lewis Carroll) The Picture Of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde) Watership Down (Rex Collings) Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson) Breakfast At Tiffany’s (Truman Capote) Mrs Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
FILM & TV - Withnail and I - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? - The Young Ones - Heavenly Creatures - Brideshead Revisited - Handcock’s Half Hour - Only Lovers Left Alive - Trainspotting - Big Fish - The Boys in the Band - Sing Street - Billy Liar - This Is England - Rising Damp - Telstar: The Joe Meek Story - Dead Poets Society - Kill Your Darlings
MUSIC - This Charming Man, Jeane, Rubber Ring, I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish, London (The Smiths) - Suedehead, Late Night Maudlin Street, Speedway (Morrissey) - Someday (The Strokes) - After Hours (The Velvet Underground) - The Man Who Sold The World, The Bewlay Brothers, The Jean Genie, Heroes (David Bowie) - Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back In Anger, Champagne Supernova, Live Forever (Oasis) - The Wild Ones, The 2 Of Us (Suede) - Land (Patti Smith) - Sunny Afternoon, Waterloo Sunset (The Kinks) 21
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Isles (Little Comets) Always Gold (Radical Face) History, Walking In The Wind (One Direction) Sheila (Jamie T) Still, Youth (Daughter) Teenage Icon (The Vaccines) New Romantics, Long Live, Fearless, Treacherous (Taylor Swift) Chas & Dave New York Dolls The Clash Gene Vincent
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THE UNFATHOMABLE FATE OF PETER: A POEM By Tess
The unfathomable fate of Peter, with shallow lines and playground rhymes and all the old things i used to say, when my head was so far away. The unfathomable fate of Peter, where we’d sit for hours with nothing going on, my cynic and her hope, polar opposite. i can look back on it now, and take it for what it was, something strange and rare, something you chose to tear, and not feel sad about it well most of the time, but when thinking of those dreams we borrowed, and those plans we made, and those pavements we would have walked with our boots clicking and our accents humming, sometimes it gets hard i’ve never said anything else about it though. and this is the only thing i’d say: that you showed me that dream and that hope, which i’ve always scoffed at, and you inked on me a begging beginning and a shitty one at that, never an end. Now i’m left to fix it, which i don’t mind, as its now mine, as i’ve now realised it’s always going to be but when i think of the unfathomable of peter, how that red jacket hangs lowly at the back of your wardrobe, if you’ve not thrown it out, that you have the lasting reminder of him and me, blue ink on
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your ankle, how it meant that much to you that you did it in the first place, the notes i wrote as we deciphered albion and the rest of his pretty poems and forget me not lines, how we spelt arcady into our names and pages and window sills of rooms which no-one will ever understand. As we promised under the candle light to never break that pact, or how i kicked you when it all fell apart and you took away everyone else as well, when you screamed at me that you “can’t just rely on a junkies dream” and all i could think of was thumping baseball bats. you showed it to me, i never asked for it, i always took it for what it was, i loved it i nurtured it i’ve made it my own. every morning i wake with the sun in my hair and light in my eyes and think of the pavements i’ll walk. With my boots clicking and my accent humming, i think of all the things i’ll write on the precious walls and all the flowers i’ll see and colours i’ll love. Every morning i think and wake of Arcady, that solid formation, her curves glistening and winking at me, dewy fingers from a secret garden, lusting me into the world of the libertines. it’s just me now, and it’s even better, Queens of Arcadia wouldn’t look good in your writing anyway.
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THE FEVER OF THE WORLD: UP THE BRACKET VS. LYRICAL BALLADS By Beth
Two men with an intense intellectual bond; born a little apart, living together with one of their sisters, writing together, creating a revolutionary piece of art, inspiring a generation, and creating a dream together. I’m talking about William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and their poetry collection Lyrical Ballads (1798), the work that is generally accepted to have kicked of the Romantic period. I’m also talking about Peter Doherty and Carl Barât and The Libertines’ Up The Bracket, an album that was seen as a similarly revolutionary, for surprisingly similar reasons. Up The Bracket has been placed on endless Best Album, Best Debut, and Best Indie Album lists, and still receives high praise now, fourteen years after it’s release. It is often credited with revitalising the British indie music scene and has been reviewed and revisited and poured over by critics and fans, every reference and rhyme has been pulled out and examined. Lyrical Ballads has received similar treatment over the past two centuries, having been written on and analysed by every English undergrad, and a lot of postgrads, as well as most literary critics and poetry fans. The most important areas of comparison between the two works, however, are in their shared central themes. The poems in Lyrical Ballads, and the preface published with the second edition, establish and explore many of the initial themes of the Romantic literary movement, such as; the use of everyday language within poetic form, artistic depictions of the concerns of ordinary people, and the character of the poet as exceptionally perceptive and sensitive, and in tune with the world in a deeper way than other people. These ideas are almost completely replicated in The Libertines’ debut album, with some of the songs even offering direct comparisons to the poems. I won’t argue that Up The Bracket was intended as a sequel, or even a tribute, to Lyrical Ballads, but I will argue that they were written with very similar artistic intentions. In the preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth wrote that the aim of the collection was; to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language really used by men.1 This is demonstrated in various poems across the collection; Oh what’s the matter? What’s the matter? What is’t that ails young Harry Gill,2 ‘By Derwent’s side my father’s cottage stood’, The woman thus her artless story told.3 Wordsworth: Prelude To Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth: Goody Blake and Harry Gill: A True Story 3 Wordsworth: The Female Vagrant 1 2
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These examples, and others, show the incorporation of patterns of everyday speech into poetry, an act that was so outlandish at the time that Wordsworth himself referred to it as an ‘experiment’4 in poetic taste. Rather than writing in the elaborate, self-consciously poetic language of their immediate literary forebears Wordsworth and Coleridge used colloquialisms and speech patterns, and descriptions rooted in the object, rather than in metaphor. The Libertines, naturally, came from a far less regimented artistic period, and were not consciously breaking with the same kind of traditions, but their lyrics still have many of the same colloquial features; She had no mind to please him Just say 'ta-ra' and leave him behind5 Well they didn't like that much I can tell you Said "sunshine I wouldn't wanna be in your shoes"6 The use of everyday language in lyrics is by no means unique to The Libertines, but the artistic purpose behind it, the desire to communicate and create art in common words is as strong with them as with the Romantic poets. Both sets of writers also extend this desire and use corrupted, disordered, or non-sensical phrases, a fairly direct comparison of which can be made between ‘The Idiot Boy’ by Wordsworth and the song ‘The Boy Looked At Johnny’. "The cocks did crow to-whoo, to-whoo, And the sun did shine so cold!"7 “Don’t you know who I think I am?”8 This style not only reflects the confused and unartistic patterns of natural speech, it also suggests the disconnection between words and the meanings they are supposed to convey. In ‘The Idiot Boy’ Wordsworth is showing the titular character's’ inability to express the strange and unknown things he has seen on his night-time journey, and in ‘The Boy Looked At Johnny the speakers confrontation, the pride and anger of his tone, and the listener’s presumed knowledge of the original mangled phrases (‘do you know who I am?’ and ‘who do you think you are?) give the background necessary to understand the line. Most importantly, both of these lines could have been lifted directly from speech and built into the poem and the song respectively. The selection of not just words, but whole stories, from ordinary life is immediately apparent in The Libertines lyrics; Did you see the stylish kids in the riot? Shovelled up like muck and set the night on fire Wombles bleed, truncheons and shields9 Wordsworth: Prelude To Lyrical Ballads The Libertines: Death On The Stairs 6 The Libertines: Up The Bracket 7 Wordsworth: The Idiot Boy 8 The Libertines: The Boy Looked At Johnny 9 The Libertines: Time For Heroes 4 5
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And they all get them out for The boys in the band They scream and they shout for For the boys in the band10 Using narrative lyrics is a style very consciously used in Lyrical Ballads, even the title ‘Ballads’ as opposed to ‘Poems’ suggests narration. ‘The Female Vagrant’, ‘Simon Lee’ and others are poems used to tell stories, many based in reality, just as these songs are. This blurring of the artistic and the everyday is part of the poetic projects of both Wordsworth/Coleridge and Doherty/Barât. One of the most loved and admired parts of The Libertines mythology is the idea of the Arcadian Dream, the vaguely defined journey that comes from the very earliest days of Doherty and Barât’s friendship; Peter and I would romanticise about Albion...we imagined ourselves on a voyage sailing through choppy waters, on a ship called the Albion looking for Arcadia...for the sake of home and hope and glory, let’s sail to Arcadia, an unfettered place with no constraints and infinite hope. That’s the destination. We held Albion and Arcadia close, twisted it into our own philosophy; we changed and mutated it along the way. It was our own personal mythology, our idiosyncratic, romantic ideal.11 The literary foundations of Arcadia come from Greek mythology, which describes it as the utopian home of the god Pan and other forest and nature spirits and nymphs. This idea was carried through to English romanticism where Arcadia, or Arcady, is a pre-industrial, pastoral paradise. The most famous, and direct, references to Arcadia in English poetry are found in the early romantic William Blake, but Lyrical Ballads includes references to the healing power of nature, and a kind of natural spirituality that connects with the idea; With other ministrations thou, O Nature! Healest thy wandering and distempered child: Thou pourest on him thy soft influences, Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets, Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters12 The Libertines Arcadia, and the Albion, are a contemporary view of Britain. Rather than woods and rivers and Abbey’s they describe ‘tenements and needles...daisy chains and schoolyard games’13 in their ramshackle, comparatively decrepit utopia, a paradise constructed from bits and pieces of mythology, punk, English literature and broken bottles. The sadness, and fleetingness of the Arcadian dream - an elusive thing that never quite stays still long enough to actually end the voyage is the centre of the song ‘The Good Old Days’; The Libertines: Boys In The Band Barât: Threepenny Memoir - The Lives of a Libertine 12 Coleridge: The Dungeon 13 The Libertines: The Good Old Days 10 11
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The Arcadian Dream has fallen through But the Albion sails on course.14 There are fairly obvious comparisons to make between this song and ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. They’re both sad and about boats for a start, and they both have a ‘paradise lost’ kind of feeling about them. The mariner shot down the lucky albatross who was following the boat causing the deaths of the crew, the ruination of the journey, and various other dangers (thirst, fire, zombies), but journeys on, on land now, telling his story to strangers. The only possible cure for the mariners condition, according to Coleridge is to love ‘Both man and bird and beast. // All things both great and small’15 which essentially amounts to the respect and worship of nature that leads to the romantic Arcadia. Wordsworth reflects on the sadness of the dream, writing; I heard a thousand blended notes While in a grove I sat reclined In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind.16 The Libertines thrive on this kind of nostalgia. Lost worlds and long -gone days, the idea that happiness can only be recognised in hindsight, all of these are found on Up The Bracket; For well it may hap' that these are they Your happiest days17 Just don't bang on about yesterday I wouldn't know about that anyway ... Now I'm reversing down the lonely street To a cheap hotel when I can meet the past And pay it off and keep it sweet It's sweet like nothing no It's just like nothing at all18 And it chars my heart to always hear you calling Calling for the good old days19 Obsession with the emotions of the past is a writing technique that comes directly from Wordsworth, who described poetry as intense emotions recalled in tranquility. Nostalgia, and
The Libertines: The Good Old Days Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 16 Wordsworth: Lines Written in Early Spring 17 The Libertines: Radio America 18 The Libertines: Death On The Stairs 19 The Libertines: The Good Old Days 14 15
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determinedly limping onwards despite it, is the Arcadian dream, or a part of it. Endlessly sailing on ‘stuck on the same fucking sea’ looking for the good old days with bruised and battered hopefulness. The Libertines Up The Bracket and Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads are both near impossible to overstate in their significance. Entire literary and musical movements were inspired by them, and the writers and band members had remarkably compatible artistic intentions. What makes the two most important, even above their similarities, is the fact that both works succeeded, to a great degree, in realising these intentions, expanding upon them, and bringing them to readers, and listeners, for two hundred years in the past, and, with a bit of luck, two hundred years into the future.
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DESPATCHES By Anonymous
The light is diminishing, jungle seems to close in wonder who that scooter belongs to.. garden worker tiptoes past trying not to disturb the group therapy room it is empty it is stifling. words like spikes in the heart swords like words in part flighty or almighty all the things I used to know illusion like now hanging on to the light like a gecko gnyyk gnyyk gnykk something looms as the shadows detunes itself further my doorway like the opening to some cave shadows shadenfreude from beyond the pale
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ALBUM #4 By Beth
Battle born words that can only be howled, words that pin down hold back window bar their flighty fairy-tale meanings. Let them spin and wind themselves up right, those savage lads that head the riot with their tender, smiling bloodlust. Hang your soul along a bassline, committing bloody murder with an A minor. Storms brewing and never breaking under thunderous drums. The split in the lip and the chasm. Cruelly ripping out veins to string the guitar, kindly offering it to people who listen and people who hear. The fallout from the war, grey elegiac snow over the years. Days of haze and spindling smoke dissipate into the biggest sky you've ever seen. All heaven inside the soft sunrise lullabye played on the same old heartstring guitar.
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LIBERTINE STORIES The first time I ever heard The Libertines it was a Sunday afternoon. I was sitting in an alleyway necking vodka from the bottle with a boy who'd rapidly become my best friend. The alley was behind his girlfriend's house. He handed me an earphone, he took the other, fired up on old blue discman, and said simply, "you have to hear this band". It wasn't simple though - he was letting me in on his biggest secret. The first song he played me was his favourite, Tell The King. He was utterly plastered and played it five times in a row, drunkenly yelping the lyrics, sending them echoing down the alley and into the street below. I liked it - but I kept thinking if we don't get to another song I won't ever know if I like this damn band or not. Eventually he played the album through and to say I was transformed is an understatement. By the time the disc skipped over to the beginning, I knew everything was going to change: what I listened to, how I dressed, what I read, what I believed in, who I was. I'd never heard poetry set to punk before. I'd never heard lyrics that felt imbued with a way of life so detached from my own. I'd never heard melody elevate angst and anger into beauty. Whatever these Libertines wore, whatever they cared about, whatever led them to make this music, I wanted in. And I understood the source of my new friend's power. I wrestled the disc from his reluctant hands, went home that night and sat on the floor playing it over and over, learning all the lyrics at length till I knew them better than my friend did. By the time I got to London in 2004 the band had broken up. I skulked around several places they'd mentioned or been frequent patrons of: Death Disco, Trash, Filthy's. I'd look at various empty seats in dark corners and wonder if any of the band had ever sat in them, what they'd thought or felt, if right there or there or over there they'd been engulfed in that easy excitement when everything was new and anything could happen, was about to happen. It felt like seeing ghosts, like grieving for people I had never known. It's perhaps because it was such a brief romance that I held onto this band so tightly for so long, even when years passed by with little hope of reconciliation. Listening to music they weren't involved in was, for a time, out of the question - I could find faith nowhere else, like a first love no future suitor could live up to. But above that my investment in The Libertines had instantaneously, from that first listen and then over time, become so ingrained in who I am - I read those books they read, learned those poems, watched those movies and listened to the music they in turn loved and were transformed by. I was handed a map to an identity, a world of art and freedom, a belief system I was looking for. Within it, I forged my own, and therein came great comfort and great inspiration. In that sense, the 35
Arcadia they dreamed up was a real place, and I know that to be true because I found it. The life I was given courage to lead is proof of it. -
Jessie
➳ The first Libertines song I listened to was Time For Heroes sometime in late 2014, and I thought it was terrible. I have a habit of judging bands before I've actually listened to them properly (12 year old me vowed never to like this awful band called 'Blur' after watching their Olympics performance and being rather underwhelmed by it), and they were no exception. At this point in time, I was going through that transition from an annoying emo kid who liked Fall Out Boy & co to an equally annoying pseudo-indie kid who liked Vampire Weekend and MGMT and thought she was bloody cool for doing so - The Libertines' music was miles from anything I'd listened to before. Fast forward to summer 2015, and the news that they're going to play a secret Glastonbury set to fill in for Florence who's filling in for Dave Grohl's broken leg was the best thing I'd heard all month. I watched the set on livestream, then twice after that, each time in awe of the way they could unite the crowd in such an incredible way that was on par to the likes of Oasis and The Stone Roses. I'd known it all along, I think, but it was then that I realised the impact this band has had on my generation. There was something uniquely proud - uniquely British - about them, but they managed it without being sickeningly patriotic. I'm the last person to call myself proud of my country, but every time I listen to The Libertines, I can't help but fall even a little bit in love with the version of England they created - the poet's version, the romanticisation of supermarkets and council estates, the voice of a voiceless working class united from Newcastle to London. A year on, and I'm not as intense with my love for The Libertines as I was in 2015. They're still one of my favourite bands, and I imagine they always will be, but I think there's always so much of something anyone can be exposed to before they become sick of it. Saying that, I can't see any other band having such an impact on my life as they have - it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say they changed the way I see the world - and I'll always be thankful to them for opening doors to new music I probably would otherwise have never listened to, for helping me through tough times, and for helping me make new friends. -
Abbie
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Some of us do have fires inside, or something not entirely human. Whatever the fuck it is, it doesn’t shut up. That’s what the Libertines are. They knew they were destined to say something to the world and worked hard to make it so. I’m an American and I learned about the Libs less than a year ago. The first song I fell in love with was “Gunga Din” but two weeks later I’d been shattered by many of Peter and Carl’s songs.
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This is real art, created by people who understand music not as a commodity or even a craft, but as reaching for something untouchable. And the lyrics forced me to confront myself. Thinking about how happy endings can make you toe the line, how someone else will be living my dreams tomorrow… I’ve been writing songs since I could make noises but various crap has always held me back. I picked up a uke someone had given me and started playing. I practice every day. I can improvise songs now. I can decide to do things and then do them, because I have this faith I haven’t had since I was a child. -
Bryce
➳ I was a loner all my life, and all my life I wished for somewhere to belong. My life was confined to a small space, far away from London. I felt trapped. When I started listening to The Libertines, they opened up a space holding emotions I could not name. I’d roam the city with my Discman, always walking the same streets at dusk. Sometimes tears I didn’t understand would fill my eyes; other times, the opening notes of “Tell the King” or “Death on the Stairs” would fill me with such a sudden manic energy I couldn’t help but break into a run, and it would feel as if I was chasing along with them, in a pack, not all alone. In a way, The Libertines were my gang. There were weeks and months which I’d spend fully submerged in one of their songs and retrospectively, my memories are tinted with these songs. A cool spring set ablaze by the translucent haze of “Skint and Minted”. A winter darkened by the sweetly sticky paranoia of “Cyclops”. Another spring, blurred and yellowed by “That Bowery Song”, the gentle, hushed voices and lazy guitar notes. One line could mean everything. Up to this day I find songs I’ve been listening to for years to shift and change and open up new rooms. For a while, I had a best friend whom I got into them as well. That friendship meant the world to me, and when that world broke away I felt like everything else had to end to. But it didn’t. And the seeming normality of it all was what killed me: that people could lose other people and simply move on. I don’t know how I would have lived through a pain so intense, hadn’t it been for the knowledge that there were two people out there who knew that pain. I followed Peter’s and Carl’s individual paths, saw them getting better, getting worse – and felt less alone. Their songs weren’t products of a typical process of “working through the grief”. This would have implied at some point, finally, an ending, a conclusion. But they never stopped grieving each other or what they had lost. Even if they’d at times convey a different impression it’d be out of self-defence, self-preservation. And when I was beyond believing, they found each other again – this time for good. In a world void of promise and commitment, where rationality prevails and passion is unwise, they made me feel okay about not moving on. Not only through their words and songs but through who 37
they were. They made me feel okay about raging, not giving in, believing in the truth I had been able to catch a glimpse of. Much like ancient myths and classic literature, their (significantly more real) story made me believe that there could be something that transcended the petty romances and short-lived friendships of everyday life. That two people could create something and stick to it – hold onto a bond for and with their lives. -
Simona
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We’d like to thank all the talented individuals who made this project possible: Korina
Shawn
Helen
Dar
Beth
Tess
Aisu
Jessie
Alissa
Abbie
Alex
Bryce
Morrch
Simona
Astrid
Erin
Images by Korina Dabundo/@birdloaves (cover), Morrch (page 9), Astrid Busby (page 14), Dar/@dar-as-rad (pages 19, 23, 26, 32).
Contact us at liberzines@gmail.com or thelibertineszine.tumblr.com
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