Marianne Faithfull's death at the end of last week came after a run of poor health, yet another loss, the passing of another artist and star of the 60s generation (coming so soon after the recent deaths of Denis Law and David Lynch). Marianne's life has sometimes been framed by her proximity to The Rolling Stones, her youthful singles with Andrew Loog Oldham and then her dive into drug addiction, another Rolling Stones casualty. But Marianne had an artistic career of her own and a life lived to the fullest, a life well beyond being Mick Jagger's muse.
In 1979 after a decade lost to heroin addiction, homelessness and the loss of custody of her son, she cleaned up and in 1979, at a moment when the impact of punk and what became post- punk was being felt deeply and strongly, she released a solo album, Broken English, an album she described as her masterpiece.
Musically it took from the zeitgeist, late 70s New Wave/ post- punk synths and production. On top of that was the voice, Marianne after a lost decade, her voice an octave lower than her 60s singles, a world weary rasp but full of the emotions of a survivor. The title song was inspired by the terrorists of the late 60s and early 70s counter- culture, Ulrike Meinhof of the Baader Meinhof gang- 'what are you fighting for?', she asked.
Witches' Song is slower, acoustic guitar with drums and bass, and a song for outsider women.
'Shall I see you tonight, sister, bathed in magic greet?Shall we meet on the hilltop where the two roads meet?We will form the circle, hold our hands and chantLet the great one know what it is we want'
In a 1994 interview she spoke about an encounter with Bob Dylan and Broken English...
'Bob Dylan rolled back into my life again right after Broken English had come out. The album apparently stirred his interest and he began making inquiries about me. When he came to London for a tour, do you know what I did? I played him Broken English not once but several times. He was speechless – just like I had been when he'd played me Bringing It All Back Home. I turned the tables, I just did it all back to him. It was almost unconscious, like a playback. And he knew it. I played him Guilt – a self-explanatory song if there ever was one – and then I asked a little portentously: "Do you understand this?" I just sat there very grandly explicating my own songs. Out of nervousness, non stop. And he loved it! Over and over we played the album. At the end I was almost in tears for having gone through this album that had been so cathartic and autobiographical for me so many times. An evening of respect in my otherwise squalid life. Bob wanted to know how I'd got from my wall back into making records. Even to Dylan one doesn't just walk into a recording studio from living in a bomb site and start cutting a record. I just adore Bob Dylan. When mortals in Greek mythology encounter the Gods, they come away dazed and confused'
She went on to release many more solo albums and worked with other artists- Nick Cave, Beck, Emmylou Harris, Damon Albarn. She sings on Galleon Song on Nick Cave's Ghosteen, an album infused with the spirit of Nick's son Arthur Cave and his death in 2015. She acted too and appeared on stage, in film and on TV. She was very much a one off.
Marianne Faithfull RIP.
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