Babyshambles “There She Goes” (Best of the Decade)
The Libertines were as much Pete Doherty’s biggest curse as they were his biggest break (well, biggest curse aside from the nasty chemicals and everything). The band was so wildly successful and inspired such dogged loyalty that after they broke up, many never gave Doherty’s subsequent work a chance. Much of the criticism went something along the lines “Does it sound like the Libertines? Nope? OK, well I am done listening.” That’s really a shame because, if anything, Doherty’s post-Libertines work has allowed his songwriting to really come into its own. And never more than in Shotter’s Nation, the 2007 release with Babyshambles that put on display all the glamor, suffering, and the contradictory emotions fed by both. Doherty’s first major label release was both an infuriating mess and a heartbreaking achievement. And the album’s best track was “There She Goes,” a down and out swing-jazz number that found the band trying to sound like Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” but ending up much closer to the Cure’s “Lovecats.” Is it about Kate Moss with the bag full of “More skag than I had ever seen?” Is the song addressed to heroin? Who cares. It’s one of the best songs of the decade and it wasn’t even a charting single.