"What Katie Did": When Pete Doherty sings about his heroin addiction before proclaiming his love for Kate Moss
Story This Babyshambles song has become the Libertines' pop standard. Pete Doherty originally composed it for one of his pen pals, reworked it for his girlfriend, before using it as the soundtrack to his romance with model Kate Moss.
Pete Doherty on stage. "LE NOUVEL OBS" BY JADE ADAMS/LANDMARK/NEWSCOM/SIPA
In the spring of 2004, Pete Doherty was floating in troubled waters. The British rocker's addiction problems were piling up. A blank stare, a slurred diction, a casual attitude... On stage, he had become the sooty relic of a toxic romanticism. His demons had slowly eaten away at the Libertines utopia he had founded with Carl Barât. Between the two men, a brotherly, carnal friendship had become impossible. Banished from the group, Pete was asked to enter detox . He chose exile: he founded Babyshambles, a project as shaky as it was visceral. It was in this crack that a fragile melody appeared on the fringes of excess: "What Katie Did." But who could this mysterious "sweet sweet girl" be? who watches him get high with "not so safe" syringes?
"What Sally Did"The song was originally titled "What Sally Did," in homage to Sally Anchassi, a young woman he met through the columns of the indie music magazine "Select," following an ad posted by the teenager in 1995. In search of a muse, he describes himself as a "young man…
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