Re: Spmebody Saved Pete

[Jackie Toce <tocej@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu>]

On Thu, 6 Jun 1996 Jacksonjim@aol.com wrote:

> I think that saying that Pete was referencing an actual person in SOMEBODY
> SAVED ME when he said "I never leaned on a person like I leaned right
> then/and when I finally woke up clean my friend was dead/stone dead" is
> inaccurate.  If the song is tightly autobiographical, then the friend is
> likely not Kit Lambert because Lambert died in April, 1981, and Pete didn't
> go through his detox until late 81/early 82.  It's more likely that Pete is
> being metaphorical in this line.  Perhaps he's talking about all those people
> and friends that he knew who had used drugs and died and how his
> understanding of them and what happend to them was a part of Pete's
> motivation to get clean.  In other words, when Pete "woke up clean," so many
> of his friends were "stone dead" (Hendrix, Lambert, and Moon come immediately
> to mind).  I think to attribute Pete's lyric to a specific physical person is
> too concrete an interpretation.
> 
> Jim
> 
I read in an article a long time ago, I think it was "Rolling Stone",
in which Pete said he was referring to Kieth Moon.  He said that he was
feeling that he should have died instead of Kieth because he was more
dependent on booze than Kieth was at the time of Kieth's death.  Sorry I
don't remember what article it was.  But its probably in one of those
anniversary issues they always put out.  

Jackie