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Albion (ship) / Other (The Libertines)

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Albion is an archaic name for England or Great Britain, used poetically. The Libertines pledged to sail upon the rock'n'roll ideal of the "good ship" Albion, a mythical ship headed by Peter and Carl. A self-created romance drawing on an arch-nostalgia for a certain indefinable quality of Englishness, British films and literature of the 1950s and 1960s, Hancock's Half Hour, Steptoe and Son, Chas and Dave and skiffle music, the Albion is a ship en route to Arcadia, a never-never land where rock "means something."

Songs referencing The Libertines' ideal of the ship Albion include "The Good Old Days," with the lyrics,

The Arcadian dream has fallen through
But the Albion sails on course
So man the decks and hoist the rigging
The Pigman's found the source
And there's twelve rude boys on the oars


Early Libertines songs "Bucket Shop" and "Love On the Dole" make use of the name:

You said you live your life by the Albion creed
So pure in thoughts and word and deed
Well, oh my boy, what did you gain?

(From "Bucket Shop")

On the Albion-ay
Spew it out your soul
Love is on the dole
And there she will stay
...
My darling was a preacher on the Albion stage
She might have been a preacher in the good old days

(From "Love On the Dole")

When the revelation begun
man i just know i say a long lung lung?
way back when upon the room of albion
the first anti-christ was napoleon

(From "Revelations")

We get away with doing the little that we can
We mustn't take it too far my friend
The Albion needs every man woman and child she can get her hands on

(From "Merry Go Round")

"Albion," one of the earliest songs composed by Peter Doherty and released by Babyshambles in 2005, employs the poetic meaning of the term to refer to a vision of England more often described as Arcadia by The Libertines.

Peter Doherty's collection of diaries is called The Books of Albion. According to a 2004 article in The Independent, The Libertines' fan club was also called The Albion, and members received a quarterly magazine entitled The Albion Chronicle.