JAKE CLELAND

Wrote this relatively concise thing about The Libertines. Thanks for a great year, Hendrik.

oneweekoneband:

The Libertines - What Became of the Likely Lads?

Last track from “The Libertines” (2004)

I guess there are people who totally despise The Libertines for being NME darlings and because Pete Doherty is a dumb junkie prick and all that, but if anything that made me more sympathetic to the band. They were led by two frontmen with such fierce personalities that ended up being both toxic and, as one often follows the other, intoxicating to each other, and the result were some brutally honest songs. Imagine having to get on stage, night after night, in front of a crowd so sycophantically fervent in their adoration for you but also your partner who you fucking love/hate, and singing fairly explicitly into the microphone about the problems with your intense relationship, both sides getting equal time to air out grievances.

“What became of the likely lads? / What became of the dreams we had? / What became of forever? / Oh we’ll never know,” is utterly heartbreaking to hear, whether you’re a fan watching two people you love killing themselves on stage, or you’re the one singing into the mic, aware that you’re at least one half responsible for the destruction of the most significant thing you’ll ever experience in your life.

Neither of their follow-up projects were particularly auspicious: Dirty Pretty Things put out a pretty alright single in the shape of “Bang Bang You’re Dead” and Babyshambles is still kicking about, Doherty having had opiate inhibitors implanted in his body and subsequently replacing heroin with cocaine, but the most exciting thing either of them have done post-Libertines is play a gig as The Libertines at Reading and Leeds. It’s likely they’ll never reunite, not really, and the world has passed them by anyway, but they’ve left their legacy in the shape of a question, one more difficult to answer than a thousand red top front pages might have you believe.

— Jake Cleland

(Jake previously wrote for OWOB about The Hold Steady)