I think it sounds like being about Pete's drug addiction, or at least descension for 'decent society' into the drug underworld. The first verse carries a theme of paranoia in which reality is inverted ('your nothing') and dettachment and suspicion reign, 'you're like a journalist, the way you cut and paste and twist, you're awful'.
The lines begin to lash out angrily at the judgemental listener, bitterly suggesting they can tell the king for all he cares, and ironically accusing people of not knowing what they are talking about, 'Tell him you know how I feel'. However, the glory of this recklessness is short-lived, as again paranoia sets in 'See snakes in eyes and danger signs'. 'You won't like this at all' he warns, 'there's nothing to break your fall'. Pete's last two lines are tragic in their resignation to the conventional. Whether or not they are prophetic is yet to be proven, we have yet to read the last chapter of the Pete Doherty story. 'Didn't they explain? You have to play the game.'
The final verse is the lyrics of another writer. An observer. His voice is tender as he remembers how the hero 'is in a lonely way, living in the ruins of a castle built on sand'.
I think it sounds like being about Pete's drug addiction, or at least descension for 'decent society' into the drug underworld. The first verse carries a theme of paranoia in which reality is inverted ('your nothing') and dettachment and suspicion reign, 'you're like a journalist, the way you cut and paste and twist, you're awful'.
The lines begin to lash out angrily at the judgemental listener, bitterly suggesting they can tell the king for all he cares, and ironically accusing people of not knowing what they are talking about, 'Tell him you know how I feel'. However, the glory of this recklessness is short-lived, as again paranoia sets in 'See snakes in eyes and danger signs'. 'You won't like this at all' he warns, 'there's nothing to break your fall'. Pete's last two lines are tragic in their resignation to the conventional. Whether or not they are prophetic is yet to be proven, we have yet to read the last chapter of the Pete Doherty story. 'Didn't they explain? You have to play the game.'
The final verse is the lyrics of another writer. An observer. His voice is tender as he remembers how the hero 'is in a lonely way, living in the ruins of a castle built on sand'.