On Scottish newcomer Amy MacDonald's debut album, 'This Is the Life,' the singer-songwriter pays tribute to Pete Doherty, the man more noted on this side of the Atlantic for his drug problems and romance with model Kate Moss than his two cool bands, the Libertines and Babyshambles. The song is called 'Poison Prince' and includes such lines as, "A poetic genius is something I don't see/Why would a genius be trippin' on me," and later, "I tell you this my poison prince/'You'll soon be knockin' on heaven's door."

"I was a massive fan of the Libertines," MacDonald tells Spinner. "It was such a loss that they split up after only two albums and I hope they'll be back. But to be a massive fan and watch someone as talented as Pete Doherty go down the horrible road that he's taken now, it's really hard, especially when people are so quick to criticize him and say he's terrible. These people have never heard his music.

"It's so horrible with the whole tabloid culture," she continues. "They just sit there and berate him, and nobody actually stops and says, 'Why is he in the public eye in the first place?' Well, it's because he was an incredibly talented musician and I still think he is. I just think he's completely lost his way. 'Poison Prince' was just a song to him, from me and every other fan I know, saying, 'Forget all the crap, forget all the drugs and all the stupid influences and come back to music.'"



MacDonald actually met Doherty a few months ago when they were both on the same U.K. television show. "He was a lovely guy and he knew a lot about me," she says. "He said he'd been following what I've been doing. He's been reading interviews. I've met Elton John and massive stars, and I've never felt intimated by them as I did by Pete."

Maybe that's because she never wrote a song about Elton John that said he'll be knockin' on heaven's door. "But the thing is, he didn't mention anything about it," MacDonald says of the song. "Then he got interviewed on the show and the interviewer said, 'Have you heard Amy's song? She wrote a song about you. He said, 'Why would I want to listen to a song about myself called 'Poison Prick?' So I think there'd been a bit of miscommunication [laughs]."