22 Peter Doherty Quotes on Music

Peter Doherty quotes on music

4. I made this big statement saying, 'I've left The Libertines.' A couple of people said, 'You can't do that! You're such a great band! What are you gonna do about Brixton?' And some people said, 'Well, I'd rather be here than Brixton.' There's no reason you can't do both. If I was 16 or 17 and Morrissey opened his front door to me and let me go and listen to him and chat to him it would be a joy. Why not? It's possible. I don't really have that much else going on in my life.

7. Nooooooah. No, that was a big joke in the family. When I was 16, 17, I started drifting away from everything else and picking up a guitar, and it was like, 'What are you doing? You can't sing and you can't play a guitar', right up to the day we got signed by Rough Trade. And then it was like, 'Go on play us a song', whereas before it was, 'Shut up, fucking racket.'

13. It's that mysterious thing called hype. I've looked under every rock, and I couldn't find out what it means. Certain people hear a certain melody, and they're attracted to it. I'm in love with that feeling. We're looking for fun and adventure and a bit of redemption and somewhere to live. Everything else is a blind venture into the unknown.

18. Something good has happened to us. We are, dare I say it, a professional unit these days. When people get us in a room together now, they actually treat us like musicians. Before, they would treat us as anything but: pigeon fanciers, candles, dry humpers...

19. There are three things that I know a bit about in my life and that's QPR, my guitar and drugs. I know QPR are the best football team in the world, my guitar is the most beautiful thing I own and that I don't take enough drugs to kill me. It isnt drugs that I need to get rid of; it's the demons that fill my head. Once I have come to terms with my demons, maybe I'll be able to get clean.

24. Has there ever been a musician of cultural significance who's been aware they're significant? Maybe it's a generation whose parents came from a working class environment and because they were rootless in a way, like me and him, they latched onto that as an identity. Maybe we romanticise what our parents wanted to escape from. We're, like, fantasising out a living.

25. There's a point you reach before you're perverted and tainted by all the things that drag you into the music business, like avarice or a lust for fame. The original reason why I started was some feeling of community, equality, wanting to fight for things you believe in. Any kid who's gone to a state school knows what it's all about - bullying, racism. And you've just got to make a stand.

26. You can't get that feeling anywhere else. It's communion. It's like being washed away in the ocean, carried aloft on a wave.

28. They left me, by the side of the road, with a plastic bag and all kinds of bitterness Well, in my mind, and I can say this forever I suppose, and people might laugh at it, but I don't think I ever really left The Libertines, nor can I ever leave The Libertines, you know, having been a founder of the band with Carl, but that sounds silly, doesn't it, seeing as they played all the festivals without me and made it difficult, no - impossible, for me to play live with them.

30. I think I only needed something to hold on to. It has never been about depravity. It's always been about melody. But melody and I met in many depraved situations. Meeting melody is the victory of the empty spiralling nightmare.

31. It's not people in bands, is it? Why do people who take drugs, why are they in bands? 'Cos they're trying to prove themselves. To make themselves blank and numb and not able to communicate with other people.

32. If I want drugs, I don't have to do a gig to get them. I do a gig when I feel shit, because I need to be playing. There's no drug in the world that can compare with playing music

37. I was so, so lost and unhappy. If you listen to the songs on the first album, you can hear it. They're really sad songs and they come from a lonely place. The relationship broke up, and I went into free fall. I saw drugs as a way of avoiding:the darkness.

47. No, because it's not like they're the only songs we have. They're like children; you shouldn't really have a favourite. Unless one of your kids develops into a pervert.

53. If you've lost your faith in love and music The end won't be long But if it's gone for you I too may lose it And that would be wrong...

58. Music when the lights go out Love goes cold in shades of doubt The strange face in my mind is all too clear Music when the lights come on The girl I thought I knew has gone And with her my heart has disappeared

61. If you get tired of just hanging around Pick up a guitar, spin a web of sound And then you could be strung out all day With lovers and clowns Now I find myself still hanging around

69. She was getting pally waith a scally in the alley Giving head for gear She called a spade a spade Got slit from ear to ear I showed no decorum Spilled my heart out on the forum Like a snapshot of the most tragic day Carl is kept sedated,for the frontman elevated While McGee does all he can to ruin my band and keep me out the way In this industry of fools, musclemen and ghouls If you're not a puppet or a muppet then you might as well call it a day The truth gets so distorted The wall scrapings get snorted I'm welcome back if I give up crack But you gave me my first pipe anyway

83. What are you thinking when you see Pete Doherty self-destruct? - He's such an intelligent man. I completely understand, I just understand.

84. I think I felt a bit trapped before I met Pete. Have you seen The Lavender Hill Mob? Alec Guinness plays this wonderful, colourful person who locks it all up and goes through the motions. I always felt a bit like that. But then I met the Pigman and he said, 'You can actually knock that on the head and get out.' So we threw ourselves into eternity. And it worked.

85. He's a sweet kid, I've met him a few times. He's not the genius everyone makes him out to be. In fact, far from a genius if his new album's anything to go by. He'll go down in history as a Morrissey and Marr or Lennon and McCartney type character. Him and Carl were great for each other. Apart they'll probably be shocking. There's a lot of hypocrisy in the British press about drugs. The people who write the stories are usually off their heads on cocaine anyway.

87. I immediately fell for him; not only as a musician and poet - he has a rare grace, as well.