I Don't Want To Overstay My Welcome

Peter Perrett shared a new song and video, I Wanna Go With Dignity, earlier this week.

It's the lead song from his third (third!) solo album since 2017, something that was difficult to imagine in the years leading up to his unexpected comeback. 

I Wanna Go With Dignity is dedicated to Fiona H. Stevenson aka Fay Wolftree, a writer for Irish music magazine Hot Press, who passed in 2003 (You can find a touching remembrance by former colleague and paramour Paul O'Mahony here). The song's lyrics are also inspired in part by David Cavanagh, also a music writer for the likes of Mojo, Select, Sounds, Q and Uncut, who died in 2018. (With a moving obituary by fellow writer John Harris here) Both lives ended tragically: Fiona believed to be via a prescription drug overdose; David by suicide. Both also interviewed Peter during their careers. 

The fact that Peter Perrett is still with us is often remarked on as a thing of wonder. A 2020 feature on the Deserter website begins "Peter Perrett has only ever had two jobs: Rock star and drug lord."

In another 2020 interview with Please Kill Me, Peter states that he has been substance free since 2015 and now has "this hobby called music that makes me happier than drugs ever did so…"

Clearly the drugs were not an enabler as the three post-habit albums - How The West Was Won (2017), Humanworld (2019) and now The Cleansing (2024) - amply demonstrate. If I Wanna Go With Dignity is any indication of the 19 songs that follow on the upcoming double album, it'll be another storming collection.

"I know some of the subject matter is death, suicide and depression," Peter comments in the promo blurb, "but I feel there is an uplifting atmosphere to the album, because I'm obviously enjoying recognising what is going on around me."

I can get with that. I'm also going to get the The Cleansing via Bandcamp when it's released in November.