THE DOBERMAN

Album: Empire

Written by: Pizzorno

Releases

Officially released only on Empire.

Live Performances

Gary Alesbrook plays trumpet on the album version and for the most of live performances (on a few occasions another trumpet player – introduced as ‘baby Dave’ by Tom – has been playing).

The song has evolved since summer 2009, with an extended ending on trumpet. It has sometimes been performed acoustically. A notable version is the performance at Little Noise Sessions for Mencap . There also exist two acoustic performances sung only by Tom and only by Serge. It was performed several times for June 2011 warm-up tour but was dropped for the rest of Velociraptor! tour.

Other

Serge about the song: ‘I’ve got to say this is my favourite song on the album. It’s pretty mad. It’s about a period in my life where I did myself a lot of damage and then waking up and realising. But it also rejoices the fact that you are not alone. You’re waking up to yourself and when the trumpet comes in, you’re like the matador! You’ve won, you’re going to be alright kid! I wrote it in my kitchen at home. It was weird because I don’t know where it came from. Sometimes you get songs and you don’t believe they’re yours. I played it to the boys and we just decided to make it bigger and bigger!’

The Albums edition lists the song as ‘Doberman’ as opposed to ‘The Doberman’.

The song has been recorded live, and as Ian recalls, while very drunk. There apparently is a band inside joke about the song, which results in lots of on-stage smiles, with Tom sometimes stressing ‘this is serious’ before the song.