Dog Trumpet Great South Road – Peter O’Doherty Talks About ‘Wallpaper’

Peter O’Doherty and Reg Mombassa have released ‘Great South Road’, the first Dog Trumpet album since 2013.

Every day at Noise11.com Peter and Reg will talk about the tracks.

Today track 2 – Wallpaper, a Peter song

Peter Doherty: “I was looking at the poetry of English poet Philip Larkin. He was a terrific poet who died. He was writing a lot in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. He was a depressed, dark character who wrote perceptive poetry, very entertaining poetry about suburban life and small town life in England.

“He was a bit like a poet version of Ray Davies. Ray would look at English town life and those little things about how people are. Philip Larkin is really dark and melancholy while other bits are deliberately funny and witty.

“I imaged what his life was like when I saw a biography and imagined him as a kid. The song starts with ‘it was a gloomy house and no-one ever visited”. That was a bit like a description of his house.

“He had a stern father who liked the Nazis and took Phillip over to Germany at one stage. Philip Larkin as a boy met the top brass. I think he may have even met Hitler. There is a dark background he came from. Really weird, buggered up.

“I really like his poetry and stole (well) paraphrased a few things to concoct a song with a few verses that talks about his life and his poetry”.