100 Greatest Songs of the 00’s #2 The Libertines – Time For Heroes

Released: 2003

London wants. London desires. London expects. England’s capital had long dominated whatever cultural discourse the country seemed able of sustaining; Punk Rock? started on the Kings Road, the same environ of which the phrase “Swinging” had passed into 20th century shorthand. Acid house? Yep. Britpop? Not exactly, but sort of. Jungle? check. Because its eyes always bigger than it’s belly, what lay inside the M25 usually made the argument and told the story, which is ninety percent of any battle.

Except when it came to guitars, that is. Not so much the era of the Pistols or The Damned, but as the 20th century rolled on if you were three or four chord wonders with a hook, the provinces seemed the place to be.

Something had to be done. But most of what came out of the metropolis with this as its intention seemed fake and contrived, lacking authenticity or at least what passed for it in the sunshiiine. Sunshines themselves, flatmates Pete Doherty and Carl Barât formed The Libertines in 1997, a gnarly extraction of The Kinks, The Clash and Suede‘s effete. Initially, despite much promise the idea still couldn’t be sold to a sceptical public, until as legend has it The Strokes going big did everyone a favour.

Which, whatever accent you trade in, was a good thing, right? The band’s debut album was non-produced by Mick Jones and Time for Heroes was based on Doherty’s first hand experiences of a good old row, making reference to Wombles and being caught with yer trousers down, jack the lads dedicated to making things clean and dirty respectively. With it’s smartness and cool London had at last got what it wanted, and our communal prejudices were a thing of the past. Finally, down south was ready to look up north in the eye.