Camden (2024) s01e02 Episode Script
Episode 2
1
I first met
my guitar player at 17. Adam.
We were living in Fulham.
We'd leave at 7:00.
We'd buy some tins from the shop,
and we would literally get on
the Northern line and come all the way.
The wind would blow down.
You'd feel it hit your face
soon as the door opened.
Go up the escalator,
stand close to each other, bang.
Be real close.
The two of you'll get through.
'Cause then that would be another pint.
You know what I mean?
And then we'd walk up the high street.
Walking past the Ballroom,
and there's a line, mob line.
You're like, "Whoa!
We're gonna do that one day."
We'll go for a burger
next to The Good Mixer,
then go for a pint at The Mixer.
And then we'd always end up at The Hawley.
I love it. Like,
it's always been very much home.
We know
we're the best band in the country,
and it's as simple as that.
I made no bones about
wanting to be as big as U2.
Unashamedly. What's wrong with that?
We're not like a happy-to-be-here band.
There's so many of them.
They're just happy to be here.
Ah, they'll just do whatever.
Everybody is here
bigging up Warner and that.
- Fuck that. Fuck that.
I live my life in the city ♪
There's no easy way out ♪
When we fucking write songs, right,
we don't write them about rubbish.
I didn't see there was
so much to believe in in society,
so it was better to just kick against it
and try and change it.
I need some time in the sunshine ♪
I wanted more destruction,
more rebellion, more radicalism.
Anything that's voted for
by fans is special.
Anything that's voted for by idiots,
corporate pigs, means nothing to us.
It wasn't like an idealistic thing,
where this is what we stand for.
And we're not fucking
Rage Against the Machine.
We weren't that.
Us, man, did it ourselves.
We're rebellious for a reason.
I wanted to go nuts in the street
and smash everything up.
Yungblud came out of me
as I was fucked off at the world.
I was like, "What do you mean
I can't be my fucking self? What?"
- Fuck me! It's rammed.
- Yeah.
And that's what gave me
this sense of anger and determination.
Tonight I'm a rock 'n' roll star ♪
It's not like we were desperate
for, like, a record deal.
"Oh, my God.
Like, I really wanna be number one."
We could give a shit
about any of that stuff.
We were experimenting creatively,
having fun and enjoying ourselves.
You just had to want to be there.
You had to want to create something,
and you had to want to unite something.
And if people are gonna get in your way
or try to control you,
or subjugate you to their own way
of thinking, then fuck 'em.
I never wanted to be famous,
but I didn't want to be the guy
who wasn't famous.
I think it's pretty safe to say
Peter wanted to be famous.
He was the one who had the vision.
I didn't know anything about bands
and writing letters to the NME and things,
and fashions and trends and history.
And that's something he was really into.
He was always so full of confidence.
He absolutely believed that
we were gonna do what we eventually did.
The winners are the Libertines!
It's important to have people
you love and trust around you,
and I was really lucky to have Carl
in my life for so many years.
Yeah, this is Carl speaking.
I'd like to say Pete is probably
the best lyricist I've ever come across,
and that's what really inspired me
in the first place, you know?
I mean-- Hello?
I feel like I was the instigator.
Like, not creatively,
but in terms of the actual logistics.
"Look. Just sit down and listen to this.
What do you think?"
And even if we got 15 minutes,
something would happen.
It was a bit like I was milking him,
because I knew how talented he was.
And I think he maybe
wasn't that confident.
He was actually great,
'cause I was sort of, uh--
I was very depressive.
And he saw something in me
that nobody else ever saw.
And he was the one person
who offered direction and a future.
I thought he was the nuts.
I thought he was a brilliant guitarist
and a great lyricist.
And I'd sit at his feet,
you know, and just watch.
Because for me it was like this
"This could be the start of something."
Both had a similar love of London,
a similar yearning for something,
and a similar disdain
for the way society draws people in.
Didn't wanna be a part of that.
I didn't see there was
so much to believe in in society,
so it was better to just kick against it
and try and change it.
I wanted more rebellion, more radicalism.
I wanted something to fight for,
and it didn't really matter what it was.
We were so lucky
to find that chemistry so early on.
We'd find ourselves rowing
about words late into the night,
but even when we weren't getting on
at all, we still gravitated to each other.
That's why we made our pact together.
And we said, you know,
"Top of the world or bottom of the canal".
And I think we've seen a fair bit of both.
360 Camden Road is where
we first became the Libertines.
We had a single mattress. No covers.
The front door ended up being broken,
so we had to climb through a window.
And we finally got booted out
when Pete nicked all the money
out of the electricity meter.
It was a single bed,
and we were top and tail. Me and Carl.
And I remember one morning
I woke up, and, um,
as most men do, you know,
you wake up hardened, shall we say?
And Carl was absolutely fuming.
Like, "What the fuck are you doing?"
"It wasn't me. It was the dream."
And that was the end of that.
He was like,
"No, this is not sustainable."
An ending fitting for the start
You twist and tore our love apart ♪
Our long-suffering neighbours
bought a house at 236 Camden Road.
And we somehow managed to cut a deal
that we'd live in their basement.
So, of course,
we had to share the bedroom.
So there was one big room,
and we had two mattresses.
We had a stereo and some records.
But we had this great space,
and it was beautiful.
If you wanna try
If you wanna try ♪
Most of our days were spent
somewhere foraging,
like, under the canal bridges
late at night,
and minesweeping penniless in the Dublin
Castle, just everyone's leftovers,
slosh 'em into a pint glass
and knock 'em back.
You can't stand me, no ♪
I do look back and think,
"Jesus fucking Christ.
That was disgusting.
I wouldn't wanna do that again."
You can't stand me, no ♪
But then I also look back and say,
"If you're an artist, you need to live
your life before you can write about it."
And I think these, uh, formulative times
that you have, uh, they're everything.
It felt a bit like stepping onto a stage
every time you'd go out.
Especially a place like this.
It is a sacred place to me.
These aren't props, you know?
They're all artefacts.
Every sticker, every poster.
You can't stand me, no ♪
Even seeing, like, you know,
a skull and crossbones Clash sticker.
Or maybe you'll meet Suggs's cousin
on the high road.
This is a magical place to me
and was then.
You can't stand me, no ♪
Camden, that was the ultimate,
kind of, Mecca for misfits.
It was like living in a sort of
subculture, but in the middle of London.
And for many years, it was such a muse.
It was like bread and butter, you know,
and roses, and booze, and fags and speed.
There was a long, kind of,
incubatory period
where we just, uh, got to be ourselves,
and I don't know if that
would've been possible anywhere else.
There's a lot
of One Direction here.
I've never had a single musical lesson.
I started off by playing
"Love Will Tear Us Apart"
on the top string.
And then the first thing
that I could ever play all the way through
was "House of the Rising Sun".
For years it was just-- it was just feel.
Feel and instinct and emotion.
And, thankfully,
the songs that I've written
have become part of people's lives.
I really had no ties
in Manchester, you know what I mean?
And the girl I was living with,
I'd split up with.
And I was spending so much time
on the train between Manchester and London
to come down for meetings and stuff,
and somebody got me
a rented flat in Chiswick.
Now, I didn't know anything about London,
so Chiswick meant nothing to me.
Where it was and all that. Until I moved
to London and people were saying,
"Oh, where you living?"
I was like, "Chiswick."
Everyone would be like, "Chiswick?
What the fuck you doing there?"
I was like, "I don't know."
So somebody got me a flat in Camden.
Camden was where
everybody was hanging out anyway.
So to get a place
where you didn't have to walk that far to
when you fell out of a pub was great.
It's gonna be all right now.
It's got a heartbeat. It's got a vibe.
And it looks different
from anywhere else in London.
And a lot of young people are drawn to it.
Therefore, it's got an energy to it.
Well,
it was incredibly exciting to move here.
I started coming to Camden when I was 16.
I think I played the Camden Crawl
when I was really young,
and then moved down when I was 18.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
Oh, I'm in heaven
I have been told ♪
Who told ya? ♪
And the punk history of Camden,
and the DIY ethos,
loomed quite large over it.
Anybody who started
a band in the '80s and '90s,
they all came out loving The Clash.
Everybody would love The Clash.
So you would kind of
make a pilgrimage here.
Just to walk where they had walked,
and to be in the venues
where they had played.
Those early years when we was like
18, 19, 20, it was just a mad optimism.
There was this sense that we were just
trying to make it.
The band would be famous,
but it was also the adventure
that I'd always longed for.
It was the first time
I'd ever come to a place
where everything that I was interested in
musically, which was everything,
was available to us.
And that was just mind-blowing.
Every venue that you walked past,
every market stall that you walked past,
was playing a different genre of music.
Everybody got punk,
but they also knew about reggae.
They were definitely
interested in hip-hop.
But then also, you know,
you've got these tiny, little pubs
with people playing grotty, little gigs
where you think the floor might
fall through if people start pogoing.
Everything you could want was here.
We hadn't sold
any records then,
and Britpop never really
took off till like '95.
So everybody that was in bands
who were milling around the pubs
were kind of all
in the same circumstances.
No one had sold a great deal of records.
You know, we were all pretty broke.
So I had a great few years here.
Really loved it.
Just pubs, drinking Guinness,
fucking talking shit.
I need to be myself ♪
I can't be no one else ♪
I'm feeling supersonic
Give me gin and tonic ♪
There's a bit where
you're in the same circumstances
as your crowd.
And you're roughly the same age.
It's like having a big eye looking
at you all the time. Paranoia.
Give me your autograph ♪
You all wear the same clothes.
There's no people coming
'cause they've heard
"Wonderwall" on the radio.
You're in your 20s.
Single, got no kids. You got no baggage.
Sometimes for a band that would last
all their lives, you know what I mean?
For us it was months, you know,
and then all hell broke loose then.
The first few bars of "Supersonic"
I need to be myself ♪
I can't be no one else ♪
before you knew what
was happening, your hands were in the air.
You were having
the best night of your life.
And everybody knew the words.
It was a really, really direct
kind of music that you could plug into.
Can you sum up Oasis
for me in one sentence?
Yeah, well,
I subscribe to the, uh, Umberto Eco view
that Noel Gallagher's a poet
and Liam's a town crier.
Can I ride with you in your BMW? ♪
You can sail with me ♪
Am I a fan of Oasis?
Oh, my God. Are you joking me?
You need to find out ♪
'Cause no one's gonna tell you
What I'm on about ♪
It's, like, literally, 70% of my playlist.
We're just a rock 'n' roll band.
We don't owe nothing to nobody.
We're not an innovative band.
We just write rock 'n' roll music,
and we don't owe nothing to nobody,
except to our fans.
Defiance. Absolute utter defiance.
The reason why
we're in every paper
is 'cause there's something
to write about.
And the spirit and the way
they cultivated a movement.
We're playing their game and we mean it.
And we're honest.
And we've got the best songs,
so that's why we're in everyone's face.
Yeah, I fucking love Oasis.
You need to be yourself ♪
They're trying to get
the youth culture out of raves,
back into the gigs where they belong,
and it's really happening.
She's into Alka-Seltzer ♪
I wouldn't say we're
the voice of a generation,
but we'll definitely be leading the march.
The reason why the majority of the people
in this country like my band
is because we're like the majority
of the people in this country.
We still go to football matches.
We still go out to the pub.
We do get nicked
and busted and stuff like that.
Like everybody else does, you know?
We're still outspoken,
and we still don't give a shit.
As soon as people realise the majority
of people in this country take drugs,
then, I mean, the better off we'll all be.
No one's gonna tell her
What I'm on about ♪
A lot of the rest of Britpop
has been kind of self-referential, ironic.
Blur and Pulp and, you know,
all of these brilliant bands who,
they wanted to be successful,
but they also wanted to be
kind of understood and appreciated.
And there's a kind of intellectual
showing off that's going on.
I want to throw a telly out the window,
'cause I know I can pay for it.
And Oasis were just coming in and going,
"Fuck all of that.
We just wanna be massive."
In his latest pronouncement
that Oasis are more important than God,
he posed the intriguing question,
"Has God played Knebworth recently?"
We were into having a good time
and fucking making money,
and all the girls and drugs and all that.
Nobody can ever hear him call ♪
But we got where we did
by rehearsing, writing,
rehearsing, writing, gigging.
Being into it.
Nobody can ever hear him call ♪
So it's a cliché to say it,
and one wouldn't want
to sound like Emma Bunton,
but it was all about the music.
And then once "Wonderwall" came out,
our gigs were getting bigger and bigger
and it was very, very, very, very fast.
Cheers. Goodnight.
It was just chaos
for a few years.
Just like being on a roller coaster
and someone unlocking the seat belt.
You know you're not gonna die,
but it's tricky.
Peter's parents were
in Germany stationed in an army base.
So they'd always come over
and they'd bring supplies.
Like crates of beer and cigarillos
and cigars and frankfurter sausages.
And so after one of their trips,
we sort of generously
laid out a whole sort of bar.
We made flyers and went down to the pubs,
just invited everyone in Camden really.
I think we came here to Dublin Castle
and just handed out this flyer.
It was a picture of Stephen Spender,
sat looking mournful in a chair.
Saying, "One pound entry.
Libertines first gig."
"Dress to impress.
Bring a bit of what you fancy."
So people would bring cider,
or speed or something.
Yeah, it was a good night.
I saw two shadow men
On the Vallance Road ♪
Said they'd pay me
For your address ♪
Oh, I was so bold ♪
I said
"You see these two cold fingers? ♪
These crooked fingers I show ♪
You a way to mean no" ♪
Well, they didn't like that much ♪
The Libertines
went beyond the band.
It was meant to be the band
and everyone at the gigs,
and everyone who's an intrinsic part
of making a scene happen.
You know, the scene
can't happen with just a band.
It's all about the sort of togetherness
and that shared experience.
Everyone believing it together.
And that's how it felt.
But you're impossible ♪
And it's just like
He's in another world ♪
He doesn't see the danger on show ♪
It felt like
the band for everyone.
It felt like the band for the people.
It felt like the last gang in town.
And so, if you do gigs
in random locations, like your house,
you know, it shows a sort of sharingness
and everyone's in the same--
That was the idea.
It turned into an absolute fucking gang.
Like a mobbing.
It's interesting as well,
because in that situation, people
don't act like fans. Whatever that means.
There isn't that build-up
of propaganda like,
"You're gonna like this,
because it's gonna be a great show.
And we're the band you love."
It's like, "No. You're just sat there,
not ready for this really."
So you get, like, a blank canvas.
Saw the same two men on the Cally Road ♪
You could play
a new song to someone,
and then you knew for sure that they
were hearing the song as you wrote it.
And then it doesn't matter
how it sounds in a proper gig,
because you know they've
already heard it in its purest form.
And that was really important
for me at the time.
But it's just like
He's in another world ♪
I'd say,
"Look, by the way," to Carl.
"Don't get the hump,
but I've put it online.
We're doing a gig
in the front room in about half an hour."
He'd say, "When did you put it up?"
I'd say, "About an hour and a half ago."
So I'd give him two hours,
and he'd be fuming.
"What the fuck are you talking about?
I've got my fucking washing
drying in the bathroom."
And things like that.
Basic things, like a bit of privacy.
Perfectly reasonable.
But he'd do it.
I always hated
the idea of celebrity,
and I hated the notion of, like,
glitzy showbiz people,
and then the great unwashed.
Maybe it's my council estate background
or something,
but I always found that so, so unfair.
But it's just like we're all
In another world ♪
And so the idea that
the fans and the artists,
or whatever you wanna call 'em,
we're all part of the same scene
on the same platform,
was always really appealing.
If Britpop is synonymous
with Camden, then this is the epicentre.
If you're an aspiring guitar pop band,
and you've got any self-respect
or sense whatsoever,
this is where you should be
stopping every night.
The Good Mixer.
Everybody was here.
Everything that was interesting was here.
Everything that was happening was here.
And also everybody drank here.
I mean, in The Good Mixer,
this was just where everybody got drunk.
Is it my imagination ♪
I mean, The Good Mixer
was the most famous pub
that the NME used to write about.
Something worth living for ♪
The Good Mixer
was one of the go-tos.
Our bass player saw Graham Coxon in there.
He went over and said,
"Are you Graham Coxon?"
Graham said to him, "If you don't know
who I am, then fuck off."
To spend your days in the sunshine ♪
Blur were around all the time.
Jarvis Cocker was around quite a lot.
'Cause when it comes on top ♪
I think we got kicked out
of there pretty early.
You gotta make it happen ♪
Yeah,
I used to always get kicked out.
I think it was for doing drugs
in the toilet. I don't know.
It was a long time ago.
As I remember it, we were good-naturedly
ribbing Graham Coxon at the bar.
But it turns out,
it probably wasn't that good-natured.
And our singer, you know, can be a bit
of a loose cannon, shall we say?
And out we went, yeah,
and on to the next pub.
We'd be in the Dublin Castle.
We'd come down and we'd do our mine sweep.
Basically picking up
people's half-drunk drinks,
and nicking fags from the packet.
And then there'd be a buzz.
It'd be like, "Oh, my God.
Like, Liam Gallagher is over there."
All I need are cigarettes ♪
It's weird, actually,
how vividly I can remember it now,
because I just found a pack of
Embassy Number 1s that was half-full.
So it was like, "Oh, yeah.
We got fags for half an hour."
I kept trying to talk to Liam,
'cause he kept doing that with his elbow.
He kept knocking me away.
It was like a defence mechanism
he's got for little scrotes like me
trying to bother him.
You might as well do the white line ♪
I was like, "Liam,
we've got a basement around the corner.
You should come back
and play some of our stuff."
And he went, "Ah, mate.
I don't do that sort of thing.
You know what I mean?
'Cause I'm the devil's dick."
Which I thought was the best thing
I'd ever heard as well,
but a bit disappointed.
You had all these dreamers,
but then over there, you know what I mean,
glowing by the bar would be proof that,
you know, the real dream.
So there was still a sense
that these men/gods were real.
You've gotta, you've gotta
You've gotta make it ♪
I remember making my way back
to my flat one night with a few people,
and there was a gaggle of indie kids
sat crossed-legged, like,
against the wall in the lounge bit.
And somebody intimated
that they were my mates.
And I was like,
"I thought they were with you."
They're like, "They're not with us.
Do you not know them?"
And we was like, "Excuse me. Who are you?"
They were like, "Oh,
we just followed you back from the pub."
They were just, like, random indie kids
who liked Doc Martens
and floral dresses and donkey jackets,
who just happened to--
Yeah, they just walked in
and sat there for hours.
We were like,
"Well, can you fuck off then?"
I grew up in Doncaster,
and my old man ran a guitar shop in Soho.
So on a Saturday morning, I would get up
with him at, like, the crack of shit,
get in a van, drive down through Finchley.
I remember I used to say to my dad, like,
"Oh, yo, take me through the place
with the big shoes."
I was about six.
It was like, "Wow!"
The dragon outside the Chinese
and the piercings,
and the boots at the New Rock store.
I don't know, man.
It looked like Balamory or something.
And then, I moved outta London at 15.
And, obviously,
I'd seen all the documentaries.
Libertines, Amy, Oasis, Blur, Suede.
You know what I mean?
Everything that mattered really,
that wasn't, like, spoon-fed to you,
came out of Camden.
I mean, it was just rock 'n' roll, man.
Literally bands were formed
on conversations where you're sat,
or on the bridge,
or at the Pie & Mash shop.
You hang around,
and if you kind of touch enough magic,
you hope a little bit rubs off on you.
Before we got signed and did all that.
"When will we get signed?"
Or, "Is the A & R man coming?"
That wilderness, that training,
that's really important.
And I think without years of doing that,
then we wouldn't have been ready.
I like to think
I'm resilient in certain ways,
but I don't know how many more years
I could've taken
of playing to empty rooms.
The night before we got signed,
I think we slept in a rose bush.
I'd been really influenced by The Smiths,
in particular by Morrissey's lyrics.
I think he got signed to Rough Trade
when he was 23.
So I had this number in my head,
and I felt like I was
in a race against time.
Suddenly, there was an excitement,
and the rumour was Rough Trade
were gonna come watch us play.
We were convinced that in order
for this record label to like us,
they had to think
that we had a scene going.
It was some kind of impostor syndrome.
It felt like we had to trick them
into liking us.
So we put on a night.
We basically got every mad cat,
colourful nutter from across London,
and all of our friends
who were performers,
to all come and kind of be stooges.
We tried to get
as many people as we could.
I remember it was, like,
phoning old mates from school,
like, you know, calling in old favours.
"You know that tenner you owe me?
Forget about it.
Can you just stand in the crowd
so Rough Trade
think we've got a fan base?"
So when we came on
at midnight, the witching hour,
everyone had to just fucking lose it
and be apoplectic.
We would ply the record label with speed.
Then they'd fall under our spell.
They'd see this magic midnight world,
and, uh, yeah, it worked like a charm.
It was definitely the first show
where we played this new batch of songs
which we'd been cooking.
"Up the Bracket", "Time for Heroes",
"Boys in the Band", "What a Waster".
So I wanted these songs to have
as much momentum as they could get.
You know, then send them up there,
send them out there.
These crooked fingers ♪
So based on that live performance,
funny enough,
at the age of 23,
they gave us a record deal, yeah.
Which was a bit of a headfuck for me,
because it was actually
all my dreams come true.
We're very excited to welcome
a marvellous new band to the show.
The Libertines!
I saw two shadow men
On the Vallance Road ♪
Meanwhile, as well as
having the Libertines over here,
we have the man
that produced their record.
Please welcome Mick Jones,
ladies and gentlemen.
Well, they didn't like that much
I can tell you ♪
Well, the record company called me up,
and they sent me a CD of their stuff,
and I really liked it,
and immediately I heard it.
And then they said, "Do you wanna
go and meet the band?"
So I went down to their rehearsal room.
But it's impossible
And it's just like he's in another world ♪
We were playing, and we were, like,
we were really giving everything,
but we notice he is just motionless.
So we finish the song,
and we're, like, waiting for a response,
and he's still motionless.
And then we're, like, coming over.
Like, "Mick, what do you reckon?"
And he's-- he's fallen asleep.
Like, in the middle of our punkiest,
most upbeat number,
he's just fallen asleep.
Saw the same two men on the Cally Road ♪
And then we wakes up.
He goes, "Yeah. Sounds great, boys.
Do that song again."
So we did "Up the Bracket" again,
and he fell asleep again,
but twice hearing it in his sleep
was enough.
First couple of weeks,
I tried to figure out
how to record them, you know?
And the best way was, I think,
was to record them live, you know,
and try and capture some of that magic.
It's just like she's in another world ♪
He was always
dancing behind the screen,
and, you know, if he wasn't dancing,
then you knew it wasn't good.
If he was dancing, then you knew it was,
like, that was a great take.
He was so positive,
and he always talked about greatness.
He said, "For things to be truly great,
they needed to be in their purest,
most honest form."
And-- And he was right.
It's a-once-in-a-while thing,
this kind of group comes along.
Yeah. That's really it.
How long have you
been playing together then?
- About a year.
- A year and one week.
We started off
in a place in Shepherd's Bush.
A spot in Shepherd's Bush.
Yeah, just in a tiny room,
and then we found this warehouse
in Camden Town.
Kind of painted it up
and made it semi-habitable.
And it's much better now.
All I knew about The Clash
was "Should I Stay or Should I Go"
and, um, "London Calling".
We were walking
in the footsteps of these giants
without having the slightest idea.
I hadn't been into The Clash.
I hadn't really listened to 'em
or knew about 'em,
so that was a new sound for me, you know?
That raw, electric sound.
Just the power and glory of that music,
it had been like a gap in my education.
I felt I'd been, like,
plugged with some strange new energy.
Gave me a bit more confidence as well.
Maybe a bit too much confidence.
- Come on, knock it off.
We still got another song to do. Yeah?
They were everything
that I'd wanted us to be,
being not elevated, but being on the same
level as the people around them.
Not being, like, glitzy performers,
just being with the people.
There was no elitism about
how good you were at playing anything.
You didn't have to fucking play.
You just had to want to be there.
It's kinda odd, isn't it? Like, that we,
kind of, formulated this thing
like it was the most original thing
in the world,
and it was already there.
The whole point of this place
is you're forced
to look at yourself in the mirror
and find your own identity.
It's everything. It's energy.
The smell, the feeling, the fashion.
And the freedom.
Every ten years, it adds something.
The punks, Britpop,
into the Libertines, into Amy.
And then I believe
into this new punk-emo revival.
Whatever it is.
Brexit.
First time I got to fucking vote,
I got to have a say,
and I had it ripped under me,
and it hurt me. It traumatised me.
It fucking did, and it was just bullshit.
We can take back control of £350 million
People can wipe that under the rug,
but I was lied to on fucking TV.
It just sparked something in me
that triggered everything.
I remember the teacher
that made the whole class laugh at me
for wearing nail varnish.
I remember a kid who punched me
in the face for wearing a fucking skirt.
I remembered it all.
And I just fucking exploded.
The pop songs I was writing before that
was like,
"Oh, this is what's on the radio."
And it was just like,
"Change what's on the fucking radio.
Change what's fucking happening
'cause it's fucked."
I didn't feel like I was writing songs,
I felt like I was, like
Young people connect to the truth.
They're not stupid.
Camden provides the truth.
That's the point of this fucking place.
First UK tour,
between Birmingham and London,
I got offered
to do a radio show in America,
which required me to leave Birmingham,
get on a flight, land
sleep at an airport hotel,
play a radio show,
get on a flight, land,
three hours later,
end up at the Electric Ballroom,
miss soundcheck, go onstage.
I was like,
"You're fucking joking, right?"
And everyone was like,
"Nah. Do you wanna do it?"
I was like, "Yeah, go on. Fuck it!"
I don't even know where I am right now.
You're in good old London Town!
And I was so tired, 'cause
obviously I'd just got off the plane.
Got in the shower
in the Electric Ballroom,
and I thought, "I wonder what
debauchery has gone down here."
Fuck it. Let's go.
I washed my winky,
put my pants on, got onstage.
- Fuck me! It's rammed.
- Yeah.
Holy shit!
Fucking great.
- Let's go!
- Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!
It was cool. It was, like,
we got the black and white picture
of us playing the Ballroom, like, sick.
In a place where they fail to inspire ♪
I'm drinking the bleach
So that I feel the fire ♪
Inside is a riot, but I'm in too deep ♪
A mile in, a mile in ♪
In a place where they think
I'm a stranger ♪
I'm shaving my face
With a coke-covered razor ♪
And everyone knew every word,
and everyone was bouncing.
Jump! Jump!
I'm a ♪
- 21st century liability ♪
- Shout it!
I'm a 21st century liability ♪
I'm a 21st century liability ♪
I'm a 21st century ♪
I'm a 21st century liability ♪
Bang, bang, bang, it's all bollocks ♪
Whoo! ♪
I loved and hated
where I grew up.
Inside my house was all about
rock 'n' roll and leather and guitars.
Then outside the gates it was, like,
being ridiculed for it.
You know what I mean?
I'm a 21st century liability ♪
And I think that's why
I gravitated towards this place so much,
because you can be who you are.
I'm a 21st century liability ♪
When a hub of people who are frightened
to be who they are gather in a place,
and then get taught that
it's fucking all right to be who they are,
it becomes a place of fearlessness.
Whoo! ♪
This is what I look like.
This is who I love.
This is what I wanna be,
and this is what I represent.
Whoo! ♪
Whoo! ♪
We are reshaping what it means
to be punk or to be in punk music.
That is what this band is.
We are the first band ever
to drape that building with our banner.
So that even if you weren't coming
to the show, you see the name.
There's something happening here,
and it's big.
And the winner
of the first ever MOBO award
for best alternative act
in association with Marshall is
Bob Vylan!
Was a lovely area
before you come here. Lovely.
We're not like a happy-to-be-here band.
Right? Like, there's so many of them.
They're just happy to be here.
Ah, they'll just do whatever
anybody wants them to do.
Do you know what I mean? We're not that.
Free school dinners for the poor ♪
Pizza with a side of misery ♪
Teachers said when I leave
No one here will miss me ♪
Didn't know I was a sinner
But if they say so, well, I must be ♪
Big lips, wide nose
God knows no one will trust me ♪
Fucking hell. There we go.
PR was a nightmare at the beginning.
Absolute nightmare.
Mum don't look like me
But thank God she still loved me ♪
It was hard to find somebody
that could understand
that maybe our lived experiences
with the state, with police,
with whatever kind of form of authority,
may be slightly different to theirs.
We didn't appear out of thin air ♪
We live here ♪
We released an album this year
that we produced entirely,
mixed entirely, recorded entirely,
all from our bedroom.
And it was the first time
that an artist has ever done that:
released an album
on their own record label,
and had it reach
the UK top 20 album charts,
number three in the independent charts,
and number four in the vinyl charts.
The only time ever
on our own record label.
We didn't appear out of thin air ♪
We live here ♪
Give it the biggun round town ♪
So everybody is here bigging up Atlantic,
and bigging up Warner and that.
- Fuck that. Fuck that.
Us, man, did it ourselves!
We've got the right to vote
I mean, what more ♪
When we released "We Live Here",
it was at a time when there was, like,
the explosion of Black Lives Matter.
Remember Stephen Lawrence
He too was ♪
People suddenly saw that the stuff
that they're talking about is real,
and I know it's happening
because now BBC are reporting on it.
We didn't appear out of thin air ♪
We live here ♪
The first time I was called nigga
I was about seven or eight years old ♪
We have been Black our whole lives,
I think.
- And, so
- Yeah, as far as I remember.
As far as I remember.
And so we've always, kind of,
you know, experienced this stuff,
and that ends up in the music.
We live here ♪
We didn't appear out of thin air, mate ♪
We fucking live here, you c-- ♪
One. Two.
Punk, for a long time,
has been seen as, kind of, like,
it's rebellious
for the sake of being rebellious.
We're rebellious for a reason.
Our form of resistance
isn't to not do anything.
- Yes, that's it.
- You know?
It's almost the complete opposite,
you know?
That's it. Because that's it, right?
It's like that older punk way of living
is almost like a rebellion
with the aim of being able to do nothing.
Maybe for those that were, like,
leading that subculture at that time,
that's what they felt
they needed to do to, kind of,
like, fight against the status quo.
- But for us, like, that ain't it.
- Yeah.
We promote healthy living.
Eating right and working out
and not smoking,
not drinking, not taking drugs.
Something, again, that, like,
the punk subculture,
kind of, like, embraced,
acting like,
"It's a rock 'n' roll lifestyle."
But, again, we're reshaping that.
Thank you so much, Camden
for making this show
just so incredibly fucking special for us.
And made it such an incredible
MOBO-win celebration.
If you know this one,
sing along for the last chorus, huh?
Moving wicked and bad
Put the money in the bag ♪
Moving wicked and bad ♪
The song starts, and they start singing,
and I think, "Well, that's insane."
Put the money in the bag ♪
Moving wicked and bad
Put the money in the bag ♪
Rent on the rise
You can't afford it ♪
Baby need new clothes
Told your lady that you'll sort it ♪
In this line of work, if work is ♪
We not only get to do it,
but we get to do it on our own terms.
Intercepted
Bitch, I caught it ♪
I'm just lucky that I caught it
I'm not tryna catch a case ♪
Standing in the dock
Judge will throw the book all in my face ♪
Making music that we want to,
and not having to, like,
tone anything down,
and we can, kind of, say what
we want to say, and people like it.
Moving wicked and bad
Put the money in the bag ♪
And the winner is
The winners are the Libertines!
Well, ladies and gentlemen,
it's been a hell of a year.
I remember presenting them
an award at the NME awards
Listen, though, just give us two seconds,
all right? Carl.
and them getting up and quoting
one of the First World War poets.
"I knew a simple soldier boy"
"Who grinned through life in empty joy."
"He slept soundly through
the lonesome dark."
"And whistled early with the lark."
I remember just thinking,
"You are so talented,
and I am so worried about you."
"And in winter trenches, cowed and glum,
with cramps and lice and lack of rum,
- he put a bullet"
-"Through his brain.
And then no one spoke of him again."
And I think because I'd been in a band,
and I knew how hard the industry was.
"You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
who cheer as soldier boys march by,
sneak home and pray you'll never know
the hell where youth"
"And laughter go."
We had this cocoon.
You know, it was chaotic
and anarchic and a right bloody mess,
but it was my mess.
When you sign with a label,
you then have to use their tour manager,
use their accountants
and their publishing people.
You weren't allowed to do
little pub gigs and things like that.
I just felt like
I was relinquishing control
of things that had been
really important to me,
and I'd swore I'd never relinquish.
"How's that the album cover?
What happened to my cut and pasting?"
And it was like,
"Oh, you weren't there for the meeting."
"What meeting?"
But I think drugs
had a part to play in that as well,
because my feeling of disenfranchisement
from what was, I felt,
the beating heart of the Libertines,
went hand in hand
with my becoming, you know, like,
distracted, as Carl might see it,
you know, by drugs, by crack and heroine.
It became a huge part of my life,
so we veered off
onto very different paths at that point,
but still had the Libertines.
And then that didn't last long.
I think the tricky thing about
having a dream is that, in it coming true,
reality is always gonna be different.
You might get what you want,
but it won't look the way you imagined.
It won't feel the way you imagined.
And so when, you know,
you saw artists like the Libertines,
who had everything going for them--
They could not have been better
at what they did.
I just remember
feeling so worried for them.
And I always think, you know,
after all of these years
on the periphery watching it,
the people who want to be famous
are the worst at being famous.
You know the story. It's in the papers.
That's what's going on.
I've gotta move house, all right?
The people who are good at being famous,
it's usually a by-product,
or an accident, or a--
You know, it's not the thing
that they're chasing.
It depends what kind of person you are.
I've never had a problem with it.
I'm that arrogant to think I, kind of,
felt I deserved it anyway.
What's the worst that could happen?
A load of birds taking a photograph.
That's why you get into it
in the first place, innit?
You know,
you can't decide how it's gonna be.
You can only make the best of it
when it's happening.
Because there were
so many kids outside my house,
I had to have a switch fitted
where you could turn the doorbell off
- because they would ring it all day.
All day and night. And if it wasn't fans,
it would be the press.
Hello.
Uh, is Mr Gallagher there, please?
After a while,
it kinda dawned on me one day.
It's like, "Hang on a minute.
Put these kids to use."
So I'd, kind of, go out and say,
"Do us a favour."
And I'd give 'em, like, 50 quid and say,
"Can you go to the supermarket for us,
and get us some Yorkshire Tea,
some Red Stripe,
some Rizla papers, some Monster Munch,
and, like, a Bounty? Keep the change."
And they're like, "Yeah.
Of course. Can I have your autograph?"
Like, "Yeah, no problem.
When you get the fucking thing,
you can have my autograph."
Like, right around there.
- Actually, where that mark is.
We're going--
Start from down there.
- Going this way.
- All right.
- He sent me this intro tape.
- Yeah.
Show 'em your two fingers.
And I was like,
"That's it. That's mini-Blud."
Then we started to see all these actors,
and they were all like,
"Hello. My name's Barnaby,
and I want to be in your video."
And I was like,
"Nah, I'm gonna fly him out."
And you said something
about people wondering if I'm, like,
your son, brother, son, brother,
one of those.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, exactly
We don't really know
what you are in this video.
You're either a figment of my imagination,
my brother, my son, my cousin.
Or maybe I'm you!
Maybe.
I'd been in America, and everyone
wanted to shoot my video in LA.
"We gotta shoot it in America, man.
How's it gonna connect to the world?"
- Ready?
- Yeah.
Ready.
Know what I mean? It's so boring.
- We're going for it, mate.
- Yeah.
two, one.
So I'm shooting it in Camden.
It's got the Camden bounce.
And I needed to do it here.
I'm not gonna go out today ♪
I'm gonna sit right here
And wish the world away ♪
'Cause I'm a lowlife ♪
I've come here
every Saturday night.
For as long as I can remember,
I've come here.
I don't care if the people stare ♪
I'm gonna stay right here
In my underwear ♪
I don't wanna be in LA.
I don't wanna be in New York.
I just wanna be here,
and that's the truth.
You know I get embarrassed
Most of the days ♪
When I'm walkin' round Camden
With a smirk on my face ♪
Put my hand in my pocket
To find some change ♪
Buy a bottle of gin
To get the memories erased ♪
When things get bigger
and when things get commercialised,
it gets harder because your authenticity
becomes questioned,
'cause it's like, "How did it get so big
if it's supposed to be a subculture?"
I'm not gonna go out today ♪
I'm gonna sit right here
And wish the world away ♪
'Cause I'm a lowlife ♪
And then you have to work twice as hard
to keep the truth of it alive.
I don't care if the people stare ♪
I'm gonna stay right here
In my underwear ♪
'Cause I'm a lowlife ♪
You get big, and you go to America,
and you have loads of people telling you
what they think that you represent,
and then you get lost.
And you're trying to fit in
with the fucking music industry,
and the way it should be and the radio,
and the BRIT Awards
and all the fucking press.
I smoke a cigar ♪
I play the guitar ♪
I stay in my house ♪
And then you've got to come back
and smell the cigs and smell the beer.
You know what I mean?
People come, people go
People high, people low ♪
People stay, people change
People lie ♪
Camden is beautiful. It's wild. It's mad.
And that's why I think it'll never die.
Hypocritical, maybe, a petulant baby ♪
The function of this place
is still the same as it was.
It's still a place where people
can discover themselves and experiment.
I'm not gonna go out today ♪
I'm gonna sit right here
And wish the world away ♪
It still has
the spirit of a place
that is about a value
that doesn't have a price attached.
However much people might
try to quantify it and commercialise it,
and make it just about the money,
it just is resistant to that.
Lowlife ♪
- La-la-la-la-la ♪
- La-la-la-la-la ♪
Everything I know most certainly
about morality
and melody, loyalty and love,
I've learnt here.
- La-la-la-la-la ♪
- La-la-la-la-la ♪
Watching it all unfold
like some glorious spectacle.
Lowlife ♪
Yungblud! ♪
I first met
my guitar player at 17. Adam.
We were living in Fulham.
We'd leave at 7:00.
We'd buy some tins from the shop,
and we would literally get on
the Northern line and come all the way.
The wind would blow down.
You'd feel it hit your face
soon as the door opened.
Go up the escalator,
stand close to each other, bang.
Be real close.
The two of you'll get through.
'Cause then that would be another pint.
You know what I mean?
And then we'd walk up the high street.
Walking past the Ballroom,
and there's a line, mob line.
You're like, "Whoa!
We're gonna do that one day."
We'll go for a burger
next to The Good Mixer,
then go for a pint at The Mixer.
And then we'd always end up at The Hawley.
I love it. Like,
it's always been very much home.
We know
we're the best band in the country,
and it's as simple as that.
I made no bones about
wanting to be as big as U2.
Unashamedly. What's wrong with that?
We're not like a happy-to-be-here band.
There's so many of them.
They're just happy to be here.
Ah, they'll just do whatever.
Everybody is here
bigging up Warner and that.
- Fuck that. Fuck that.
I live my life in the city ♪
There's no easy way out ♪
When we fucking write songs, right,
we don't write them about rubbish.
I didn't see there was
so much to believe in in society,
so it was better to just kick against it
and try and change it.
I need some time in the sunshine ♪
I wanted more destruction,
more rebellion, more radicalism.
Anything that's voted for
by fans is special.
Anything that's voted for by idiots,
corporate pigs, means nothing to us.
It wasn't like an idealistic thing,
where this is what we stand for.
And we're not fucking
Rage Against the Machine.
We weren't that.
Us, man, did it ourselves.
We're rebellious for a reason.
I wanted to go nuts in the street
and smash everything up.
Yungblud came out of me
as I was fucked off at the world.
I was like, "What do you mean
I can't be my fucking self? What?"
- Fuck me! It's rammed.
- Yeah.
And that's what gave me
this sense of anger and determination.
Tonight I'm a rock 'n' roll star ♪
It's not like we were desperate
for, like, a record deal.
"Oh, my God.
Like, I really wanna be number one."
We could give a shit
about any of that stuff.
We were experimenting creatively,
having fun and enjoying ourselves.
You just had to want to be there.
You had to want to create something,
and you had to want to unite something.
And if people are gonna get in your way
or try to control you,
or subjugate you to their own way
of thinking, then fuck 'em.
I never wanted to be famous,
but I didn't want to be the guy
who wasn't famous.
I think it's pretty safe to say
Peter wanted to be famous.
He was the one who had the vision.
I didn't know anything about bands
and writing letters to the NME and things,
and fashions and trends and history.
And that's something he was really into.
He was always so full of confidence.
He absolutely believed that
we were gonna do what we eventually did.
The winners are the Libertines!
It's important to have people
you love and trust around you,
and I was really lucky to have Carl
in my life for so many years.
Yeah, this is Carl speaking.
I'd like to say Pete is probably
the best lyricist I've ever come across,
and that's what really inspired me
in the first place, you know?
I mean-- Hello?
I feel like I was the instigator.
Like, not creatively,
but in terms of the actual logistics.
"Look. Just sit down and listen to this.
What do you think?"
And even if we got 15 minutes,
something would happen.
It was a bit like I was milking him,
because I knew how talented he was.
And I think he maybe
wasn't that confident.
He was actually great,
'cause I was sort of, uh--
I was very depressive.
And he saw something in me
that nobody else ever saw.
And he was the one person
who offered direction and a future.
I thought he was the nuts.
I thought he was a brilliant guitarist
and a great lyricist.
And I'd sit at his feet,
you know, and just watch.
Because for me it was like this
"This could be the start of something."
Both had a similar love of London,
a similar yearning for something,
and a similar disdain
for the way society draws people in.
Didn't wanna be a part of that.
I didn't see there was
so much to believe in in society,
so it was better to just kick against it
and try and change it.
I wanted more rebellion, more radicalism.
I wanted something to fight for,
and it didn't really matter what it was.
We were so lucky
to find that chemistry so early on.
We'd find ourselves rowing
about words late into the night,
but even when we weren't getting on
at all, we still gravitated to each other.
That's why we made our pact together.
And we said, you know,
"Top of the world or bottom of the canal".
And I think we've seen a fair bit of both.
360 Camden Road is where
we first became the Libertines.
We had a single mattress. No covers.
The front door ended up being broken,
so we had to climb through a window.
And we finally got booted out
when Pete nicked all the money
out of the electricity meter.
It was a single bed,
and we were top and tail. Me and Carl.
And I remember one morning
I woke up, and, um,
as most men do, you know,
you wake up hardened, shall we say?
And Carl was absolutely fuming.
Like, "What the fuck are you doing?"
"It wasn't me. It was the dream."
And that was the end of that.
He was like,
"No, this is not sustainable."
An ending fitting for the start
You twist and tore our love apart ♪
Our long-suffering neighbours
bought a house at 236 Camden Road.
And we somehow managed to cut a deal
that we'd live in their basement.
So, of course,
we had to share the bedroom.
So there was one big room,
and we had two mattresses.
We had a stereo and some records.
But we had this great space,
and it was beautiful.
If you wanna try
If you wanna try ♪
Most of our days were spent
somewhere foraging,
like, under the canal bridges
late at night,
and minesweeping penniless in the Dublin
Castle, just everyone's leftovers,
slosh 'em into a pint glass
and knock 'em back.
You can't stand me, no ♪
I do look back and think,
"Jesus fucking Christ.
That was disgusting.
I wouldn't wanna do that again."
You can't stand me, no ♪
But then I also look back and say,
"If you're an artist, you need to live
your life before you can write about it."
And I think these, uh, formulative times
that you have, uh, they're everything.
It felt a bit like stepping onto a stage
every time you'd go out.
Especially a place like this.
It is a sacred place to me.
These aren't props, you know?
They're all artefacts.
Every sticker, every poster.
You can't stand me, no ♪
Even seeing, like, you know,
a skull and crossbones Clash sticker.
Or maybe you'll meet Suggs's cousin
on the high road.
This is a magical place to me
and was then.
You can't stand me, no ♪
Camden, that was the ultimate,
kind of, Mecca for misfits.
It was like living in a sort of
subculture, but in the middle of London.
And for many years, it was such a muse.
It was like bread and butter, you know,
and roses, and booze, and fags and speed.
There was a long, kind of,
incubatory period
where we just, uh, got to be ourselves,
and I don't know if that
would've been possible anywhere else.
There's a lot
of One Direction here.
I've never had a single musical lesson.
I started off by playing
"Love Will Tear Us Apart"
on the top string.
And then the first thing
that I could ever play all the way through
was "House of the Rising Sun".
For years it was just-- it was just feel.
Feel and instinct and emotion.
And, thankfully,
the songs that I've written
have become part of people's lives.
I really had no ties
in Manchester, you know what I mean?
And the girl I was living with,
I'd split up with.
And I was spending so much time
on the train between Manchester and London
to come down for meetings and stuff,
and somebody got me
a rented flat in Chiswick.
Now, I didn't know anything about London,
so Chiswick meant nothing to me.
Where it was and all that. Until I moved
to London and people were saying,
"Oh, where you living?"
I was like, "Chiswick."
Everyone would be like, "Chiswick?
What the fuck you doing there?"
I was like, "I don't know."
So somebody got me a flat in Camden.
Camden was where
everybody was hanging out anyway.
So to get a place
where you didn't have to walk that far to
when you fell out of a pub was great.
It's gonna be all right now.
It's got a heartbeat. It's got a vibe.
And it looks different
from anywhere else in London.
And a lot of young people are drawn to it.
Therefore, it's got an energy to it.
Well,
it was incredibly exciting to move here.
I started coming to Camden when I was 16.
I think I played the Camden Crawl
when I was really young,
and then moved down when I was 18.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
Oh, I'm in heaven
I have been told ♪
Who told ya? ♪
And the punk history of Camden,
and the DIY ethos,
loomed quite large over it.
Anybody who started
a band in the '80s and '90s,
they all came out loving The Clash.
Everybody would love The Clash.
So you would kind of
make a pilgrimage here.
Just to walk where they had walked,
and to be in the venues
where they had played.
Those early years when we was like
18, 19, 20, it was just a mad optimism.
There was this sense that we were just
trying to make it.
The band would be famous,
but it was also the adventure
that I'd always longed for.
It was the first time
I'd ever come to a place
where everything that I was interested in
musically, which was everything,
was available to us.
And that was just mind-blowing.
Every venue that you walked past,
every market stall that you walked past,
was playing a different genre of music.
Everybody got punk,
but they also knew about reggae.
They were definitely
interested in hip-hop.
But then also, you know,
you've got these tiny, little pubs
with people playing grotty, little gigs
where you think the floor might
fall through if people start pogoing.
Everything you could want was here.
We hadn't sold
any records then,
and Britpop never really
took off till like '95.
So everybody that was in bands
who were milling around the pubs
were kind of all
in the same circumstances.
No one had sold a great deal of records.
You know, we were all pretty broke.
So I had a great few years here.
Really loved it.
Just pubs, drinking Guinness,
fucking talking shit.
I need to be myself ♪
I can't be no one else ♪
I'm feeling supersonic
Give me gin and tonic ♪
There's a bit where
you're in the same circumstances
as your crowd.
And you're roughly the same age.
It's like having a big eye looking
at you all the time. Paranoia.
Give me your autograph ♪
You all wear the same clothes.
There's no people coming
'cause they've heard
"Wonderwall" on the radio.
You're in your 20s.
Single, got no kids. You got no baggage.
Sometimes for a band that would last
all their lives, you know what I mean?
For us it was months, you know,
and then all hell broke loose then.
The first few bars of "Supersonic"
I need to be myself ♪
I can't be no one else ♪
before you knew what
was happening, your hands were in the air.
You were having
the best night of your life.
And everybody knew the words.
It was a really, really direct
kind of music that you could plug into.
Can you sum up Oasis
for me in one sentence?
Yeah, well,
I subscribe to the, uh, Umberto Eco view
that Noel Gallagher's a poet
and Liam's a town crier.
Can I ride with you in your BMW? ♪
You can sail with me ♪
Am I a fan of Oasis?
Oh, my God. Are you joking me?
You need to find out ♪
'Cause no one's gonna tell you
What I'm on about ♪
It's, like, literally, 70% of my playlist.
We're just a rock 'n' roll band.
We don't owe nothing to nobody.
We're not an innovative band.
We just write rock 'n' roll music,
and we don't owe nothing to nobody,
except to our fans.
Defiance. Absolute utter defiance.
The reason why
we're in every paper
is 'cause there's something
to write about.
And the spirit and the way
they cultivated a movement.
We're playing their game and we mean it.
And we're honest.
And we've got the best songs,
so that's why we're in everyone's face.
Yeah, I fucking love Oasis.
You need to be yourself ♪
They're trying to get
the youth culture out of raves,
back into the gigs where they belong,
and it's really happening.
She's into Alka-Seltzer ♪
I wouldn't say we're
the voice of a generation,
but we'll definitely be leading the march.
The reason why the majority of the people
in this country like my band
is because we're like the majority
of the people in this country.
We still go to football matches.
We still go out to the pub.
We do get nicked
and busted and stuff like that.
Like everybody else does, you know?
We're still outspoken,
and we still don't give a shit.
As soon as people realise the majority
of people in this country take drugs,
then, I mean, the better off we'll all be.
No one's gonna tell her
What I'm on about ♪
A lot of the rest of Britpop
has been kind of self-referential, ironic.
Blur and Pulp and, you know,
all of these brilliant bands who,
they wanted to be successful,
but they also wanted to be
kind of understood and appreciated.
And there's a kind of intellectual
showing off that's going on.
I want to throw a telly out the window,
'cause I know I can pay for it.
And Oasis were just coming in and going,
"Fuck all of that.
We just wanna be massive."
In his latest pronouncement
that Oasis are more important than God,
he posed the intriguing question,
"Has God played Knebworth recently?"
We were into having a good time
and fucking making money,
and all the girls and drugs and all that.
Nobody can ever hear him call ♪
But we got where we did
by rehearsing, writing,
rehearsing, writing, gigging.
Being into it.
Nobody can ever hear him call ♪
So it's a cliché to say it,
and one wouldn't want
to sound like Emma Bunton,
but it was all about the music.
And then once "Wonderwall" came out,
our gigs were getting bigger and bigger
and it was very, very, very, very fast.
Cheers. Goodnight.
It was just chaos
for a few years.
Just like being on a roller coaster
and someone unlocking the seat belt.
You know you're not gonna die,
but it's tricky.
Peter's parents were
in Germany stationed in an army base.
So they'd always come over
and they'd bring supplies.
Like crates of beer and cigarillos
and cigars and frankfurter sausages.
And so after one of their trips,
we sort of generously
laid out a whole sort of bar.
We made flyers and went down to the pubs,
just invited everyone in Camden really.
I think we came here to Dublin Castle
and just handed out this flyer.
It was a picture of Stephen Spender,
sat looking mournful in a chair.
Saying, "One pound entry.
Libertines first gig."
"Dress to impress.
Bring a bit of what you fancy."
So people would bring cider,
or speed or something.
Yeah, it was a good night.
I saw two shadow men
On the Vallance Road ♪
Said they'd pay me
For your address ♪
Oh, I was so bold ♪
I said
"You see these two cold fingers? ♪
These crooked fingers I show ♪
You a way to mean no" ♪
Well, they didn't like that much ♪
The Libertines
went beyond the band.
It was meant to be the band
and everyone at the gigs,
and everyone who's an intrinsic part
of making a scene happen.
You know, the scene
can't happen with just a band.
It's all about the sort of togetherness
and that shared experience.
Everyone believing it together.
And that's how it felt.
But you're impossible ♪
And it's just like
He's in another world ♪
He doesn't see the danger on show ♪
It felt like
the band for everyone.
It felt like the band for the people.
It felt like the last gang in town.
And so, if you do gigs
in random locations, like your house,
you know, it shows a sort of sharingness
and everyone's in the same--
That was the idea.
It turned into an absolute fucking gang.
Like a mobbing.
It's interesting as well,
because in that situation, people
don't act like fans. Whatever that means.
There isn't that build-up
of propaganda like,
"You're gonna like this,
because it's gonna be a great show.
And we're the band you love."
It's like, "No. You're just sat there,
not ready for this really."
So you get, like, a blank canvas.
Saw the same two men on the Cally Road ♪
You could play
a new song to someone,
and then you knew for sure that they
were hearing the song as you wrote it.
And then it doesn't matter
how it sounds in a proper gig,
because you know they've
already heard it in its purest form.
And that was really important
for me at the time.
But it's just like
He's in another world ♪
I'd say,
"Look, by the way," to Carl.
"Don't get the hump,
but I've put it online.
We're doing a gig
in the front room in about half an hour."
He'd say, "When did you put it up?"
I'd say, "About an hour and a half ago."
So I'd give him two hours,
and he'd be fuming.
"What the fuck are you talking about?
I've got my fucking washing
drying in the bathroom."
And things like that.
Basic things, like a bit of privacy.
Perfectly reasonable.
But he'd do it.
I always hated
the idea of celebrity,
and I hated the notion of, like,
glitzy showbiz people,
and then the great unwashed.
Maybe it's my council estate background
or something,
but I always found that so, so unfair.
But it's just like we're all
In another world ♪
And so the idea that
the fans and the artists,
or whatever you wanna call 'em,
we're all part of the same scene
on the same platform,
was always really appealing.
If Britpop is synonymous
with Camden, then this is the epicentre.
If you're an aspiring guitar pop band,
and you've got any self-respect
or sense whatsoever,
this is where you should be
stopping every night.
The Good Mixer.
Everybody was here.
Everything that was interesting was here.
Everything that was happening was here.
And also everybody drank here.
I mean, in The Good Mixer,
this was just where everybody got drunk.
Is it my imagination ♪
I mean, The Good Mixer
was the most famous pub
that the NME used to write about.
Something worth living for ♪
The Good Mixer
was one of the go-tos.
Our bass player saw Graham Coxon in there.
He went over and said,
"Are you Graham Coxon?"
Graham said to him, "If you don't know
who I am, then fuck off."
To spend your days in the sunshine ♪
Blur were around all the time.
Jarvis Cocker was around quite a lot.
'Cause when it comes on top ♪
I think we got kicked out
of there pretty early.
You gotta make it happen ♪
Yeah,
I used to always get kicked out.
I think it was for doing drugs
in the toilet. I don't know.
It was a long time ago.
As I remember it, we were good-naturedly
ribbing Graham Coxon at the bar.
But it turns out,
it probably wasn't that good-natured.
And our singer, you know, can be a bit
of a loose cannon, shall we say?
And out we went, yeah,
and on to the next pub.
We'd be in the Dublin Castle.
We'd come down and we'd do our mine sweep.
Basically picking up
people's half-drunk drinks,
and nicking fags from the packet.
And then there'd be a buzz.
It'd be like, "Oh, my God.
Like, Liam Gallagher is over there."
All I need are cigarettes ♪
It's weird, actually,
how vividly I can remember it now,
because I just found a pack of
Embassy Number 1s that was half-full.
So it was like, "Oh, yeah.
We got fags for half an hour."
I kept trying to talk to Liam,
'cause he kept doing that with his elbow.
He kept knocking me away.
It was like a defence mechanism
he's got for little scrotes like me
trying to bother him.
You might as well do the white line ♪
I was like, "Liam,
we've got a basement around the corner.
You should come back
and play some of our stuff."
And he went, "Ah, mate.
I don't do that sort of thing.
You know what I mean?
'Cause I'm the devil's dick."
Which I thought was the best thing
I'd ever heard as well,
but a bit disappointed.
You had all these dreamers,
but then over there, you know what I mean,
glowing by the bar would be proof that,
you know, the real dream.
So there was still a sense
that these men/gods were real.
You've gotta, you've gotta
You've gotta make it ♪
I remember making my way back
to my flat one night with a few people,
and there was a gaggle of indie kids
sat crossed-legged, like,
against the wall in the lounge bit.
And somebody intimated
that they were my mates.
And I was like,
"I thought they were with you."
They're like, "They're not with us.
Do you not know them?"
And we was like, "Excuse me. Who are you?"
They were like, "Oh,
we just followed you back from the pub."
They were just, like, random indie kids
who liked Doc Martens
and floral dresses and donkey jackets,
who just happened to--
Yeah, they just walked in
and sat there for hours.
We were like,
"Well, can you fuck off then?"
I grew up in Doncaster,
and my old man ran a guitar shop in Soho.
So on a Saturday morning, I would get up
with him at, like, the crack of shit,
get in a van, drive down through Finchley.
I remember I used to say to my dad, like,
"Oh, yo, take me through the place
with the big shoes."
I was about six.
It was like, "Wow!"
The dragon outside the Chinese
and the piercings,
and the boots at the New Rock store.
I don't know, man.
It looked like Balamory or something.
And then, I moved outta London at 15.
And, obviously,
I'd seen all the documentaries.
Libertines, Amy, Oasis, Blur, Suede.
You know what I mean?
Everything that mattered really,
that wasn't, like, spoon-fed to you,
came out of Camden.
I mean, it was just rock 'n' roll, man.
Literally bands were formed
on conversations where you're sat,
or on the bridge,
or at the Pie & Mash shop.
You hang around,
and if you kind of touch enough magic,
you hope a little bit rubs off on you.
Before we got signed and did all that.
"When will we get signed?"
Or, "Is the A & R man coming?"
That wilderness, that training,
that's really important.
And I think without years of doing that,
then we wouldn't have been ready.
I like to think
I'm resilient in certain ways,
but I don't know how many more years
I could've taken
of playing to empty rooms.
The night before we got signed,
I think we slept in a rose bush.
I'd been really influenced by The Smiths,
in particular by Morrissey's lyrics.
I think he got signed to Rough Trade
when he was 23.
So I had this number in my head,
and I felt like I was
in a race against time.
Suddenly, there was an excitement,
and the rumour was Rough Trade
were gonna come watch us play.
We were convinced that in order
for this record label to like us,
they had to think
that we had a scene going.
It was some kind of impostor syndrome.
It felt like we had to trick them
into liking us.
So we put on a night.
We basically got every mad cat,
colourful nutter from across London,
and all of our friends
who were performers,
to all come and kind of be stooges.
We tried to get
as many people as we could.
I remember it was, like,
phoning old mates from school,
like, you know, calling in old favours.
"You know that tenner you owe me?
Forget about it.
Can you just stand in the crowd
so Rough Trade
think we've got a fan base?"
So when we came on
at midnight, the witching hour,
everyone had to just fucking lose it
and be apoplectic.
We would ply the record label with speed.
Then they'd fall under our spell.
They'd see this magic midnight world,
and, uh, yeah, it worked like a charm.
It was definitely the first show
where we played this new batch of songs
which we'd been cooking.
"Up the Bracket", "Time for Heroes",
"Boys in the Band", "What a Waster".
So I wanted these songs to have
as much momentum as they could get.
You know, then send them up there,
send them out there.
These crooked fingers ♪
So based on that live performance,
funny enough,
at the age of 23,
they gave us a record deal, yeah.
Which was a bit of a headfuck for me,
because it was actually
all my dreams come true.
We're very excited to welcome
a marvellous new band to the show.
The Libertines!
I saw two shadow men
On the Vallance Road ♪
Meanwhile, as well as
having the Libertines over here,
we have the man
that produced their record.
Please welcome Mick Jones,
ladies and gentlemen.
Well, they didn't like that much
I can tell you ♪
Well, the record company called me up,
and they sent me a CD of their stuff,
and I really liked it,
and immediately I heard it.
And then they said, "Do you wanna
go and meet the band?"
So I went down to their rehearsal room.
But it's impossible
And it's just like he's in another world ♪
We were playing, and we were, like,
we were really giving everything,
but we notice he is just motionless.
So we finish the song,
and we're, like, waiting for a response,
and he's still motionless.
And then we're, like, coming over.
Like, "Mick, what do you reckon?"
And he's-- he's fallen asleep.
Like, in the middle of our punkiest,
most upbeat number,
he's just fallen asleep.
Saw the same two men on the Cally Road ♪
And then we wakes up.
He goes, "Yeah. Sounds great, boys.
Do that song again."
So we did "Up the Bracket" again,
and he fell asleep again,
but twice hearing it in his sleep
was enough.
First couple of weeks,
I tried to figure out
how to record them, you know?
And the best way was, I think,
was to record them live, you know,
and try and capture some of that magic.
It's just like she's in another world ♪
He was always
dancing behind the screen,
and, you know, if he wasn't dancing,
then you knew it wasn't good.
If he was dancing, then you knew it was,
like, that was a great take.
He was so positive,
and he always talked about greatness.
He said, "For things to be truly great,
they needed to be in their purest,
most honest form."
And-- And he was right.
It's a-once-in-a-while thing,
this kind of group comes along.
Yeah. That's really it.
How long have you
been playing together then?
- About a year.
- A year and one week.
We started off
in a place in Shepherd's Bush.
A spot in Shepherd's Bush.
Yeah, just in a tiny room,
and then we found this warehouse
in Camden Town.
Kind of painted it up
and made it semi-habitable.
And it's much better now.
All I knew about The Clash
was "Should I Stay or Should I Go"
and, um, "London Calling".
We were walking
in the footsteps of these giants
without having the slightest idea.
I hadn't been into The Clash.
I hadn't really listened to 'em
or knew about 'em,
so that was a new sound for me, you know?
That raw, electric sound.
Just the power and glory of that music,
it had been like a gap in my education.
I felt I'd been, like,
plugged with some strange new energy.
Gave me a bit more confidence as well.
Maybe a bit too much confidence.
- Come on, knock it off.
We still got another song to do. Yeah?
They were everything
that I'd wanted us to be,
being not elevated, but being on the same
level as the people around them.
Not being, like, glitzy performers,
just being with the people.
There was no elitism about
how good you were at playing anything.
You didn't have to fucking play.
You just had to want to be there.
It's kinda odd, isn't it? Like, that we,
kind of, formulated this thing
like it was the most original thing
in the world,
and it was already there.
The whole point of this place
is you're forced
to look at yourself in the mirror
and find your own identity.
It's everything. It's energy.
The smell, the feeling, the fashion.
And the freedom.
Every ten years, it adds something.
The punks, Britpop,
into the Libertines, into Amy.
And then I believe
into this new punk-emo revival.
Whatever it is.
Brexit.
First time I got to fucking vote,
I got to have a say,
and I had it ripped under me,
and it hurt me. It traumatised me.
It fucking did, and it was just bullshit.
We can take back control of £350 million
People can wipe that under the rug,
but I was lied to on fucking TV.
It just sparked something in me
that triggered everything.
I remember the teacher
that made the whole class laugh at me
for wearing nail varnish.
I remember a kid who punched me
in the face for wearing a fucking skirt.
I remembered it all.
And I just fucking exploded.
The pop songs I was writing before that
was like,
"Oh, this is what's on the radio."
And it was just like,
"Change what's on the fucking radio.
Change what's fucking happening
'cause it's fucked."
I didn't feel like I was writing songs,
I felt like I was, like
Young people connect to the truth.
They're not stupid.
Camden provides the truth.
That's the point of this fucking place.
First UK tour,
between Birmingham and London,
I got offered
to do a radio show in America,
which required me to leave Birmingham,
get on a flight, land
sleep at an airport hotel,
play a radio show,
get on a flight, land,
three hours later,
end up at the Electric Ballroom,
miss soundcheck, go onstage.
I was like,
"You're fucking joking, right?"
And everyone was like,
"Nah. Do you wanna do it?"
I was like, "Yeah, go on. Fuck it!"
I don't even know where I am right now.
You're in good old London Town!
And I was so tired, 'cause
obviously I'd just got off the plane.
Got in the shower
in the Electric Ballroom,
and I thought, "I wonder what
debauchery has gone down here."
Fuck it. Let's go.
I washed my winky,
put my pants on, got onstage.
- Fuck me! It's rammed.
- Yeah.
Holy shit!
Fucking great.
- Let's go!
- Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!
It was cool. It was, like,
we got the black and white picture
of us playing the Ballroom, like, sick.
In a place where they fail to inspire ♪
I'm drinking the bleach
So that I feel the fire ♪
Inside is a riot, but I'm in too deep ♪
A mile in, a mile in ♪
In a place where they think
I'm a stranger ♪
I'm shaving my face
With a coke-covered razor ♪
And everyone knew every word,
and everyone was bouncing.
Jump! Jump!
I'm a ♪
- 21st century liability ♪
- Shout it!
I'm a 21st century liability ♪
I'm a 21st century liability ♪
I'm a 21st century ♪
I'm a 21st century liability ♪
Bang, bang, bang, it's all bollocks ♪
Whoo! ♪
I loved and hated
where I grew up.
Inside my house was all about
rock 'n' roll and leather and guitars.
Then outside the gates it was, like,
being ridiculed for it.
You know what I mean?
I'm a 21st century liability ♪
And I think that's why
I gravitated towards this place so much,
because you can be who you are.
I'm a 21st century liability ♪
When a hub of people who are frightened
to be who they are gather in a place,
and then get taught that
it's fucking all right to be who they are,
it becomes a place of fearlessness.
Whoo! ♪
This is what I look like.
This is who I love.
This is what I wanna be,
and this is what I represent.
Whoo! ♪
Whoo! ♪
We are reshaping what it means
to be punk or to be in punk music.
That is what this band is.
We are the first band ever
to drape that building with our banner.
So that even if you weren't coming
to the show, you see the name.
There's something happening here,
and it's big.
And the winner
of the first ever MOBO award
for best alternative act
in association with Marshall is
Bob Vylan!
Was a lovely area
before you come here. Lovely.
We're not like a happy-to-be-here band.
Right? Like, there's so many of them.
They're just happy to be here.
Ah, they'll just do whatever
anybody wants them to do.
Do you know what I mean? We're not that.
Free school dinners for the poor ♪
Pizza with a side of misery ♪
Teachers said when I leave
No one here will miss me ♪
Didn't know I was a sinner
But if they say so, well, I must be ♪
Big lips, wide nose
God knows no one will trust me ♪
Fucking hell. There we go.
PR was a nightmare at the beginning.
Absolute nightmare.
Mum don't look like me
But thank God she still loved me ♪
It was hard to find somebody
that could understand
that maybe our lived experiences
with the state, with police,
with whatever kind of form of authority,
may be slightly different to theirs.
We didn't appear out of thin air ♪
We live here ♪
We released an album this year
that we produced entirely,
mixed entirely, recorded entirely,
all from our bedroom.
And it was the first time
that an artist has ever done that:
released an album
on their own record label,
and had it reach
the UK top 20 album charts,
number three in the independent charts,
and number four in the vinyl charts.
The only time ever
on our own record label.
We didn't appear out of thin air ♪
We live here ♪
Give it the biggun round town ♪
So everybody is here bigging up Atlantic,
and bigging up Warner and that.
- Fuck that. Fuck that.
Us, man, did it ourselves!
We've got the right to vote
I mean, what more ♪
When we released "We Live Here",
it was at a time when there was, like,
the explosion of Black Lives Matter.
Remember Stephen Lawrence
He too was ♪
People suddenly saw that the stuff
that they're talking about is real,
and I know it's happening
because now BBC are reporting on it.
We didn't appear out of thin air ♪
We live here ♪
The first time I was called nigga
I was about seven or eight years old ♪
We have been Black our whole lives,
I think.
- And, so
- Yeah, as far as I remember.
As far as I remember.
And so we've always, kind of,
you know, experienced this stuff,
and that ends up in the music.
We live here ♪
We didn't appear out of thin air, mate ♪
We fucking live here, you c-- ♪
One. Two.
Punk, for a long time,
has been seen as, kind of, like,
it's rebellious
for the sake of being rebellious.
We're rebellious for a reason.
Our form of resistance
isn't to not do anything.
- Yes, that's it.
- You know?
It's almost the complete opposite,
you know?
That's it. Because that's it, right?
It's like that older punk way of living
is almost like a rebellion
with the aim of being able to do nothing.
Maybe for those that were, like,
leading that subculture at that time,
that's what they felt
they needed to do to, kind of,
like, fight against the status quo.
- But for us, like, that ain't it.
- Yeah.
We promote healthy living.
Eating right and working out
and not smoking,
not drinking, not taking drugs.
Something, again, that, like,
the punk subculture,
kind of, like, embraced,
acting like,
"It's a rock 'n' roll lifestyle."
But, again, we're reshaping that.
Thank you so much, Camden
for making this show
just so incredibly fucking special for us.
And made it such an incredible
MOBO-win celebration.
If you know this one,
sing along for the last chorus, huh?
Moving wicked and bad
Put the money in the bag ♪
Moving wicked and bad ♪
The song starts, and they start singing,
and I think, "Well, that's insane."
Put the money in the bag ♪
Moving wicked and bad
Put the money in the bag ♪
Rent on the rise
You can't afford it ♪
Baby need new clothes
Told your lady that you'll sort it ♪
In this line of work, if work is ♪
We not only get to do it,
but we get to do it on our own terms.
Intercepted
Bitch, I caught it ♪
I'm just lucky that I caught it
I'm not tryna catch a case ♪
Standing in the dock
Judge will throw the book all in my face ♪
Making music that we want to,
and not having to, like,
tone anything down,
and we can, kind of, say what
we want to say, and people like it.
Moving wicked and bad
Put the money in the bag ♪
And the winner is
The winners are the Libertines!
Well, ladies and gentlemen,
it's been a hell of a year.
I remember presenting them
an award at the NME awards
Listen, though, just give us two seconds,
all right? Carl.
and them getting up and quoting
one of the First World War poets.
"I knew a simple soldier boy"
"Who grinned through life in empty joy."
"He slept soundly through
the lonesome dark."
"And whistled early with the lark."
I remember just thinking,
"You are so talented,
and I am so worried about you."
"And in winter trenches, cowed and glum,
with cramps and lice and lack of rum,
- he put a bullet"
-"Through his brain.
And then no one spoke of him again."
And I think because I'd been in a band,
and I knew how hard the industry was.
"You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
who cheer as soldier boys march by,
sneak home and pray you'll never know
the hell where youth"
"And laughter go."
We had this cocoon.
You know, it was chaotic
and anarchic and a right bloody mess,
but it was my mess.
When you sign with a label,
you then have to use their tour manager,
use their accountants
and their publishing people.
You weren't allowed to do
little pub gigs and things like that.
I just felt like
I was relinquishing control
of things that had been
really important to me,
and I'd swore I'd never relinquish.
"How's that the album cover?
What happened to my cut and pasting?"
And it was like,
"Oh, you weren't there for the meeting."
"What meeting?"
But I think drugs
had a part to play in that as well,
because my feeling of disenfranchisement
from what was, I felt,
the beating heart of the Libertines,
went hand in hand
with my becoming, you know, like,
distracted, as Carl might see it,
you know, by drugs, by crack and heroine.
It became a huge part of my life,
so we veered off
onto very different paths at that point,
but still had the Libertines.
And then that didn't last long.
I think the tricky thing about
having a dream is that, in it coming true,
reality is always gonna be different.
You might get what you want,
but it won't look the way you imagined.
It won't feel the way you imagined.
And so when, you know,
you saw artists like the Libertines,
who had everything going for them--
They could not have been better
at what they did.
I just remember
feeling so worried for them.
And I always think, you know,
after all of these years
on the periphery watching it,
the people who want to be famous
are the worst at being famous.
You know the story. It's in the papers.
That's what's going on.
I've gotta move house, all right?
The people who are good at being famous,
it's usually a by-product,
or an accident, or a--
You know, it's not the thing
that they're chasing.
It depends what kind of person you are.
I've never had a problem with it.
I'm that arrogant to think I, kind of,
felt I deserved it anyway.
What's the worst that could happen?
A load of birds taking a photograph.
That's why you get into it
in the first place, innit?
You know,
you can't decide how it's gonna be.
You can only make the best of it
when it's happening.
Because there were
so many kids outside my house,
I had to have a switch fitted
where you could turn the doorbell off
- because they would ring it all day.
All day and night. And if it wasn't fans,
it would be the press.
Hello.
Uh, is Mr Gallagher there, please?
After a while,
it kinda dawned on me one day.
It's like, "Hang on a minute.
Put these kids to use."
So I'd, kind of, go out and say,
"Do us a favour."
And I'd give 'em, like, 50 quid and say,
"Can you go to the supermarket for us,
and get us some Yorkshire Tea,
some Red Stripe,
some Rizla papers, some Monster Munch,
and, like, a Bounty? Keep the change."
And they're like, "Yeah.
Of course. Can I have your autograph?"
Like, "Yeah, no problem.
When you get the fucking thing,
you can have my autograph."
Like, right around there.
- Actually, where that mark is.
We're going--
Start from down there.
- Going this way.
- All right.
- He sent me this intro tape.
- Yeah.
Show 'em your two fingers.
And I was like,
"That's it. That's mini-Blud."
Then we started to see all these actors,
and they were all like,
"Hello. My name's Barnaby,
and I want to be in your video."
And I was like,
"Nah, I'm gonna fly him out."
And you said something
about people wondering if I'm, like,
your son, brother, son, brother,
one of those.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, exactly
We don't really know
what you are in this video.
You're either a figment of my imagination,
my brother, my son, my cousin.
Or maybe I'm you!
Maybe.
I'd been in America, and everyone
wanted to shoot my video in LA.
"We gotta shoot it in America, man.
How's it gonna connect to the world?"
- Ready?
- Yeah.
Ready.
Know what I mean? It's so boring.
- We're going for it, mate.
- Yeah.
two, one.
So I'm shooting it in Camden.
It's got the Camden bounce.
And I needed to do it here.
I'm not gonna go out today ♪
I'm gonna sit right here
And wish the world away ♪
'Cause I'm a lowlife ♪
I've come here
every Saturday night.
For as long as I can remember,
I've come here.
I don't care if the people stare ♪
I'm gonna stay right here
In my underwear ♪
I don't wanna be in LA.
I don't wanna be in New York.
I just wanna be here,
and that's the truth.
You know I get embarrassed
Most of the days ♪
When I'm walkin' round Camden
With a smirk on my face ♪
Put my hand in my pocket
To find some change ♪
Buy a bottle of gin
To get the memories erased ♪
When things get bigger
and when things get commercialised,
it gets harder because your authenticity
becomes questioned,
'cause it's like, "How did it get so big
if it's supposed to be a subculture?"
I'm not gonna go out today ♪
I'm gonna sit right here
And wish the world away ♪
'Cause I'm a lowlife ♪
And then you have to work twice as hard
to keep the truth of it alive.
I don't care if the people stare ♪
I'm gonna stay right here
In my underwear ♪
'Cause I'm a lowlife ♪
You get big, and you go to America,
and you have loads of people telling you
what they think that you represent,
and then you get lost.
And you're trying to fit in
with the fucking music industry,
and the way it should be and the radio,
and the BRIT Awards
and all the fucking press.
I smoke a cigar ♪
I play the guitar ♪
I stay in my house ♪
And then you've got to come back
and smell the cigs and smell the beer.
You know what I mean?
People come, people go
People high, people low ♪
People stay, people change
People lie ♪
Camden is beautiful. It's wild. It's mad.
And that's why I think it'll never die.
Hypocritical, maybe, a petulant baby ♪
The function of this place
is still the same as it was.
It's still a place where people
can discover themselves and experiment.
I'm not gonna go out today ♪
I'm gonna sit right here
And wish the world away ♪
It still has
the spirit of a place
that is about a value
that doesn't have a price attached.
However much people might
try to quantify it and commercialise it,
and make it just about the money,
it just is resistant to that.
Lowlife ♪
- La-la-la-la-la ♪
- La-la-la-la-la ♪
Everything I know most certainly
about morality
and melody, loyalty and love,
I've learnt here.
- La-la-la-la-la ♪
- La-la-la-la-la ♪
Watching it all unfold
like some glorious spectacle.
Lowlife ♪
Yungblud! ♪