A Letter to a Trainwreck

Part 2 in our continuing series, “Letters That Will Never Be Read”

Dear Pete Doherty,

I love you. I love you sooooooo much.

Forgive me for being forward, Pete, but I wanted to get that out of the way. I think it’s important that we remember this as we keep reading. Up the Bracket is one of my favorite albums of all-time. The first side, all the way up to “The Boy Looked at Johnny” (but not counting the miserable “Radio America”), is probably the most classic string of songs this era has produced. It’s slouchy and elegant and tuneful and rebellious and yayed-up, and was the soundtrack to more nights than I could tell you. I’ll never forget that.

That said, you’ve really got to get your shit together, Broseph.

There’s myth-creating, fine. I think you’ve been pretty naked in your ambitions on that front, between the tabloid shit, the Kate Moss saga, your determination to be photographed with syringes stuck in your arm (or sticking them into passed-out girls, whatevs). We get it—you mean it. You don’t have to prove yourself by taking this to its only logical conclusion. I’m not telling you anything you haven’t already thought about, either—I think you’re actually fucked-up like a fox, and fully aware of what you’re projecting.

The problem is, you haven’t produced enough great work to die as a genius, guy. If you die now, you die as a buffoon who wrote a few great tunes and fucked a really hot chick. That would be fine for most folks, but I think you’ve got more in you. I think you could be one of the greats, one of the icons, if you can just focus on the goddam work.

The Libertines had a few classics, but was mostly uneven and tossed off. Same for that godawful collection of demos you passed out. You should’ve kept those in the vault. And now Babyshambles seems headed in the same direction—for every “Fuck Forever” or “Killamangiro”, we have to put up with an entire side’s worth of forgettable sketches. You aren’t good enough to sketch, Pete, not yet. Finish the fucking tunes, weed out the bad ones, and make the records as sharp as guillotines.

If you really want to die, do it after three or four timeless albums. I’ll definitely be heartbroken, and I’ll probably write some misguided obituary about what could have been. There’s no sense in your death at any point, but less than no sense now, before you’ve done what you could to become what you set out to be, earnestly, an Englishman and a hero.

Sincerely,
Brian