Albion is track #12 on Babyshambles' debut album, Down in Albion, with writing credit going to Doherty. The song was also released as a single (The 3rd from Down in Albion, and 4th by Babyshambles) on 28.11.05, and was also released on the B Sides album, exclusive to America.
Albion deals primarily with the concept of Albion and Arcadia, thought of as a mythical England (or Great Britain), the landscape and life of which is referred to throughout the song. This idea was central to The Libertines and still is to Babyshambles. The song was the first acoustic song Babyshambles released. The song had been used in The Libertines live sets, and recorded by the band for their Babyshambles Sessions and thus there was some controversy from fans when it was released. It is always one of the highlights of Babyshambles live shows, and is still regularly played at gigs by the band.
The song's lyrical quality is a reflection of its origin, a poem penned by Doherty when he was 16 (according to Babyshambles' bass player Drew McConnell). He was quoted in the November 5 2005 NME track-by-track guide to Down in Albion, as saying Albion was the first song Doherty wrote. However, Doherty has stated Albion was the first time he'd ever gotten the same feelings from one of his own songs as he did from other people's. The lyrics were praised on an episode of Newsnight Review, when critics were reviewing Babyshambles' debut album Down in Albion. The single version differs from the album cut, where the song proper is preceded by a minute-long noise (thought to incorporate the sound of a Hammond organ warming up).
The promotional video for Albion has been directed by Roger Pomphrey and features a variety of live, fly-on-the-wall and backstage footage of the band. Some of the footage shows Peter Doherty and former manager, James Mullord, together. However due to Doherty's alleged grievances against him, the record label ordered that Mullord be digitally erased from the video, hence when he and Doherty are shown arriving in Trafalgar Square for the Love Music Hate Racism gig in May 2005, Mullord's face is pixelated. At the end of the video, Doherty is seen walking into the distance with his former manager. Other footage shows glimpses of Kate Moss with Doherty, embracing on the edge of a river bank, as seen previously in the Who the Fuck is Pete Doherty? documentary. Doherty is also seen standing up, attempting to thumb a ride from a passing speed boat.
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