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Carla's shirt is ripped down the middle, and this is nothing new: they're half-way through a song, and if the crowd were passive at the beginning, their souls have since been ignited and freed. Carla's shirt is ripped down the middle, and it's nothing new, not when Pete lost - threw - his own shirt hours ago, not when they're so sweaty they're sliding around the stage, banging into each other, cursing and snarling. It's nothing new, and even if she took her shirt off - like she'll end up doing, probably, because it's hot in here, the combination of bodies and that anger that only finds a way out in front of them sweltering - it wouldn't shock anybody. The world and his wife has seen Carla with her shirt off. The NME probably has an entire filing cabinet dedicated to Carla's awful taste in bras, mismatched like the rest of her.
But Carla's shirt is ripped down the middle, and for all Pete will say it's nothing new, it is new: because though the way his eyes are drawn again and again to her collarbone - probably too prominent, and he should remember that, because neat whiskey and bananas are no substitute for food, even he knows that - is as old as time (read: 1997), Carla's complete indifference is not. She is going crazy - literally, figuratively, totally crazy, and it's like she sold her soul to the devil to play guitar like that, and if Pete can admit he is in love with the way she snarls, he can admit he's crazy too. But the point is - Carla always cares. She only pretends she doesn't - hiding behind her hair, letting Pete talk shit to their fans and the papers, smudging whatever she will say into a cigarette filter.
There are always things that give her away: how just last week she beat up the teenager who had laughed during Pete's poetry reading, coming back with bloody fists and a bloody grin. The first time Pete saw her cry, someone's (was it his?) clumsy, drunken words shattering her smile - and how she'd been stoic and unashamed, forcing him to watch. The way she'd crawled into his bed last night with cold toes, holding him as he came down from a bad trip, his eyes damp and his body shaking. Carla is not a bitch, like people are prone to saying, and while he's at it - she's not a slut, a dyke, a whore or a slag, and she didn't suck anyone's dick to get their album out.
Carla's shirt is ripped down the middle, and this is nothing new: Pete's eyes are drawn to her when she's bundled up, even when she's in the next room, when she's away, he'll be thinking of her, thinking of her. Carla's shirt is ripped down the middle, and the crowd is going wild, Pete is so terribly in love and he doesn't ever think he'll escape, and this is nothing new. But Carla's shirt is ripped down the middle, and she's smiling at him, like she left that awful sad feeling behind in their bedsit, tucked between sofa cushions - like she's forgotten what it ever meant to be afraid, feel hopeless or self-conscious. And that is new, and it's better than any poison, and all dreams fly out the window when God's latest joke smiles his way.
Carla's sadness is one of the few constants in their life. She's the saddest incarnation of Boudicca, trapped on the stairs. But when she smiles - it almost seems like all her troubles have been fished from the bottom of the bottle and flushed down the drain. So Carla's shirt is ripped down the middle, and it's nothing new, but the smile that's hurtling towards Pete at seventy miles per hour is, and he's looking forward to the moment it will crash into his side with a yelp and a guitar screech.