Marianne Faithfull Fights Back

00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Marianne Faithful has been many things throughout her half a century in music, a close confidant of the Rolling Stones, a pop star, a homeless drug addict, and a critically acclaimed comeback artist Evening I Search. Despite a career filled with personal and professional turmoil, mary Anne Faithful has always managed to find her footing. Last year, just as Europe started to go into quarantine, Marie Anne was recording a series of spoken word renditions of nineteenth century Romantic poems scored by Brian Eno in a Cave and her longtime collaborator Warren Ellis. But then in April of twenty twenty, Maryanne was hospitalized with the coronavirus. Now, nearly a year later, she says she's been deemed a COVID longhauler because of the virus's lingering effects on her lungs and short term memory. On today's episode, Bruce Heathlam talks to Maryanne Faithful about how COVID has impacted her work, her stalled biopic, and why she resented being labeled Mick Jagger's news. This is broken record liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Bruce Heathlam and Maryanne Faithful. We want to talk about your new album, She Walks in Beauty, And which is you reading romantic poetry? We say romantic poetry, We mean poetry from the great Romantic writers like Shelley and Byron and century Romantic English. And you read over these sort of beautiful musical soundscapes created by Warren Ellis, who's one of your regular collaborators, Nick cave Brian Eno. So, first, when did the idea for this album come to you? Well, it's been an idea I've had for a long time, but I never thought it would come to the point where we could actually do it, you know, that the record company would be hip enough. It had a lot to do with meeting and working with my manager Francois, and of course Warren and Nick. What convinced the record company that this was a good idea? I'm not sure, but Francois did it. Anyway, It does seem very unlikely, you know, for record for anywa company. It's not the most commercial project we've ever heard of it, No, but it is a terrific project, and it's it is a terrific project. It is, And I want to talk about I think what makes it so terrific. But first of all, how did you choose these particular poems? I went through a lot with Head, actually, my producer and Alex. I went through a lot of Shelley, a lot of Byron Jeetz was the best one, really, because there's so much and it's so gorgeous. Not the best one, but the easiest one to find, although we still couldn't do everything in it. Well, the Thomas Wood one, the Bridge of Size. I discovered that when I was about fourteen or fifteen, and I loved it then, and I wondered once I started making records to all, I wonder if I could ever do a record of poetry like things I really like. And so I've been slowly gathering it together and having thoughts about it. Which poems I wanted to do for quite a long time. But what this project did for me I never really appreciated or liked words with but now through this I've begun to really love words. It was very good for me. Like that, Oh, that's interesting. A lot of people who like Byron and Shelley, you know, part of the deal is they decide they don't like Wordsworth early on. Well, I don't think I did that consciously anyway. I just didn't really didn't really get it. You know. Did you grow up in a home where poetry was part of your education, part of daily life. Yes, I suppose I did. Your father taught literature right, No, he was a professor of Italian Renaissance. Oh, I see m But that meant Petrock Dante all that he was also a spy, wasn't he he was. Yes, that's how he met your mother, I think, And that's I was just and that's how he met my mother, who was also She wasn't a spy, but she was in was hardly any resistance in Vienna, but my mother was involved in it because it was very straightforward. My grandmother, my lovely grandmother, Flora, was Jewish, so there was no question, you know. And your your mother also knew Curvile and Brect and these people, well, she only knew them to when they were going in for dance rehearsal into the theater. She worked in the Corded Ballet with Matt Rhinehart. And when all the little dancers would get trooping in to the theater for rehearsal, they would meet my uncle Alexander brother and that's a breach and Kurt Vilee coming out after an all nighter with lots to drink and lots of things written, so amazing. Yes, and they would they would all say good Morgan, heir breath, good Morgan, heal that sort of thing, you know. They were this little girl's Did you ever meet them later in life? Oh no, no, I wish no, of course not. No. I guess they're both gone. Okay, well I thought i'd ask. Yeah, all right, so what kind of you said? You read the Thomas Hood when you were fourteen? I came across. I think I was just very lucky. I somehow got hold of the book called Powe Grey's Golden Treasury, and it was in there and I read it and I was just blown away by it, you know. And a few of the other booms that I used were also in this book. But it was it was very broad. It wasn't just nineteenth century English Romantic. It was all sorts of poetry in general. But yeah, was the romantic poetry? Was nineteenth century poetry? Was that the poetry that grabbed you when you were young? Yes? And also that's the poetry that I started with my wonderful English teacher, Missus Simpson, when I think I was seventeen, and I would have gone on with that if I hadn't been discovered. Do you do you want to become a poet or an academic? You know? Well, I don't know. I might. I enjoyed learning, I enjoyed study. I didn't think I wanted to become a poet. Now. My poor father once asked me what I wanted to do. Oh no, I asked him. That was so awful, A trick question. Really. I asked my poor father what he thought I should do, and he gave the wrongs. He said he thought I should be a social scientist, a social worker. And I was so shocked, because of course I wanted to be a film star. And then you, famously, when you were I think sixteen, you were discovered, yes, well a bit older seventeen eighteen, yea, And you were kind of swept up into London at the time, and you yeah on the Rolling Stone Andrew lou golderm and all that. Yeah, and you recorded as Tears go By. It was a huge hit. Yes it wasn't a huge hit. I think it did rather well. It's a lovely lovely song. It is, I still like, yeah, and it's unfortunate getting considering your long career, you were always considered like amused to the Rolling Stones. Yeah, and that's really not a great job. No, it was accurate, but job show. You know, I can think of better ones. But yeah, I thought it was. But of course, I mean, I'm delighted that Nick or Keith or both found things to use in my brain. But that wasn't really what I want. You wanted to be your own star. Yeah, m and you had. You had a rough time of it for a while, and homelessness and addiction. I suppose I did, but I had a lot of fun too. But then really starting with I guess Broken English, Yeah, that was my big comeback. Yeah, and we think about it now. You were so young when you did that. Everybody I was very seemed so strange. Yeah, And since then you've become this incredible interpreter of people's work. I mean, you've written songs of yeahs as well as writing my own songs. You do, but you've you've covered so many people. One of my favorite cover versions you've ever done, and you probably don't remember doing it, was Spike Driver Blues for the Harry, of course I remember. I mean, you know, one of my absolute, very best, dearest, much loved friends was how Willna, who has just died because of COVID, and I miss him more than I can say, especially now with this lovely new boat. He wasn't here, I couldn't use him and I miss him so much. And all that thing of Spoke Drive Blues, which I love, was done. It was a show that how put together and he gave me to do spoke Driver Blues and it turned out really well. Was that his idea to do that? It was? It was Hol's idea. Yeah. Now when he first suggested that that's not your usual material it's an American blues folk song, well I really love American blue. But my question is you so often do songs? I think Down from Dover by Dolly Parton is another great example where yeah, you bring so much to a song when you sit down to say, okay, I'm going to cover something like Spike Driver Blues. What's the process? How do you? How do you make that song yours? Oh? God, Bruce, I don't really know. Something magic happens and it becomes mine. M Is it something that happens with the musicians, happens live, or it just when you're it does happen live, but it also happens when I'm recording, and the how is very clever getting me to sing songs that I wouldn't know about. You know, I actually did know, But there are lots of things, like some of the things on Strange Weather that I didn't know. But I want you to do it because I want you to please out. I loved him, I adored you know. The reason I'm asking is, in some ways, this current album almost feels like cover versions of great poems. I know that's a silly way to say it, but when I listen to it, and you know, I've had to learn some of these poems in high school like everybody else, and didn't enjoy them. I didn't remember them, and that's one of the reasons I chose some of them. I wanted to use, choose poems that a lot of people would have heard of or no. But it's an amazing experience listening to them because I feel like I'm hearing them in a different way, in the same way when I hear you do Spike Driver Blues, I understand the song I feel the song in a different way. Does that make any sense? Yes, especially with Spike Driver Blues, because that's so far from my life, from my own experience, But I feel it very much. When I did it, I really felt it. I understood it, I knew what it was about, and I wanted to get it right. We'll be right back with more from Bruce Headlam and Mary Anne. After a quick break, we're back with Mary and Faithful and Bruce had them and with some of the songs you've done, as Tears Go By, a Baby Blue You've done, You've done some songs at different points throughout your career. You've done three different versions of As Tears Go Tears Go By. Yeah, I never felt I really got it running, you see, and Warren particularly wanted to do it again, and I agreed. I thought, well, let's try it again. And what what were you thinking about the second or third time you did it? How was it different for you? Well, it's very straightforward, very simple the first time. It's really quite a perky little bop song. But the strange thing about it is that it's a song probably meant to be sung by a woman much much older than me. I was seventeen, and the second time I did it was when I just stopped taking drugs, and I think it was very, very sad. It was very It was sad because I was sad. You know, you were sad because you'd stop taking drugs. And I think, so, yeah, I haven't got to the bit yet where you realize how wonderful it is to me not change. Did that take a while, not too long, but yeah, it didn't come right away. And then you did it in twenty and seventeen. What was it like doing it then? Well, then I really felt I was in the right place to do it, the right age, the right place, the right time, and with the right people. So if you listen to all three versions, now, would that be your favorite? Now? Yes? Yes, it is okay. And you've done other You've done Sister Morphine a couple of times, You've done Baby Blue a couple of times. You're a little bit like Frank Sinatra. You do things different points in your career. My wow, I mean that. I mean that sincerely as someone who I agree. Yeah, thank you. I adore Franks and much respect him a lot. I want to talk more about these poems because, as I said, they feel like the great cover version of a song. I want to ask you more about Bridge of Size because I think in some ways it's your best performance on this well one of them are. There are quite a lot of really good performances, you know. I think the Lady of Charlotte they owe to a Nightingale Ozemandels is really good. To the Moon, it's fantastic. Yeah, you do it twice. Well, that was Head's idea. The producer, my producer and engineer, and he did something so brilliant. He made it sound like I do it, and then it sounds as if the moon does it back to me. Oh I like that. So why So you know a lot of these and there it's romantic poetry. So a lot of them are about death, of course, and a lot of them are about women who aren't like you at all because they're either you know, they're either these temptresses like in the in the Kids, or they're they're victims. Bridge of Bridge of Size is about a woman who kills herself. Yes, she throws herself off a bridge into the Thames. Yes, yeah, tell me what what that's like for you to read? Did that have any personal Well? I think it it got to me more when I was much younger. By the time I recorded it, I was well over that sort of thing. There was no way I want you to be a victim, and I was mhmm. But she is, and I don't don't dislike for it, That's just how she is. Do you have a favorite on the album? Oh god, I don't know. Both Warren and I particularly do love Bridgish Eye, probably because it's got this wonderful rhythm and the alliteration and the rhyming is so brilliant. But a lot of them have that, you know. Did you record these first and then he composed the tracks underneath? Yeah. I recorded them with Head in London and we sent them. Head sent them to Warren in Paris, and he then composed the music. Are you in London most of the time now? Yes, I've just moved back to London. I was in Paris too, but my son really wanted me to come back to London, and I realized that I really hadn't given him enough time and attention in my life, and I should and I came back. And I want you to be with my grandchildren. I like them very much. The other thing about these poems, and this really got to me when I was listening to it over and over, which is I mean, so many of them are about separation or being solitary, particularly on and I'm going to say side too, because that's how I still think of these things. You know, to the Moon, We'll go No More, Arriving and Lady of Chala they got to me, I think because of the isolation everybody's been living in in the past year. Yeah, you know, certainly in Roving there's a line and I'm going to get it wrong, but something the effect that the heart must pause to breathe and love itself. You got it right, have rest. It really got to me, I think because of now you recorded some of this before you were sick, Yeah, some of it after you know already it was all almost or in fact, it was lockdown when we recorded it, so we knew what that was. Both Warren and Guy and Head, we all realized that this was a great, great record to give people and to make at this moment. We'll be back with more from Mary and Faithful. After a break. We're back with more from Bruce Head Them and Mary and Faithful. We were talking about the songs and the second part of the album, and you said in some way you were thinking about the isolation people we were going through, and I mentioned Roving, But I think the performance that really got to me was A Lady of Chalot. Oh yeah, well that's it's a very interesting poem. It's about I think anyway. It's really about a narcissist who can only see life through a mirror. And when the mirror cracks. I don't really know why it cracks. She does something wrong, doesn't she? Oh she looks at life straight. Yeah. Yeah, And at that moment the mirror cracked from side to side, and then she starts to sing her swan song, and she's going to die. Is she gets sick of it? Looking at everything through a mirror? Is that wonderful life? I am half sick of shadows? Said the Lady of shut up. She is a narcissist, but in another sense, it's about someone who it's at a great distance from the world. She lives beside Camelot. She's not allowed to look at it, and so when she tries to enter the world by looking at it, she has to die, which again made me think so much of people who want to be closer to other people now are taking an enormous risk, and you know in her body floats up to Camelot where everyone can see her. In her song she dies. I can't again, I can't remember the exact line, but to me, it reminded me so much. You mentioned how Wilner, but of reading obituaries of people you might not have even known about, and then you find out that they're gone because of this. I found that very resonant. Yeah, me too, I've always felt about that. Yeah, Oh, was that another one you you'd always like? Yes, and a lot of people too, you know, it's a lot of people know that one. I think you know these poems aren't fashionable right now. No, in a way, the romantic poetry isn't. I think we want things either more absurd or more direct, do you? But you still find something in them? Do you find new things in them when you read them? I don't care. I never think about fashionable doesn't mean anything. I love the beat, but I love all sorts of things, and I love nineteenth century romantic poetry too. And I'm glad if people aren't all sort of making records like this, because that means I count. But You've also been on this run of terrific albums from Easycome, Easy Go and Give My Love to London. I love that one, yeah, which is also a great song you wrote with Steve Earle, who I love very much too. What do you account for this level of success at an age when most people are looking back on their past work. I really don't know. I really don't. When you go into make an album, do you do you have a particular idea that the album is going to be one thing or another. So I think I must do deep down, you know, But I don't really say okay, but you said this one out loud. Yeah, I'm going by feel an instant. I don't really know exactly what I'm doing. I think how did, but I don't really. Well, maybe I do, but I just don't admit it. I don't. Well. Do you ever wonder if you were ascribing things to how he was really just bringing out in you the ability to do these songs. I never thought of that, but that might be true. Yeah, I don't know. And you know, a couple of the songs I do associate with you later songs is like Nick Cave's late Victorian Holocaust. Oh yeah, Oh, what a great song. And you do a great, great version of an old HOGI Carmichael song, which is I get along very well without you. Yeah, it's a great song. Well, it also makes me think of you because you had this very storied life. You were, for me many people still more of an image than a performer. Yeah, you were this beautiful girl who represented swinging London. Yes. And when I listen to that song, that's what I hear. I hear you saying I don't need any of that. Oh yeah, So tell me what's what's next for you? Well, I don't know. It depends on what happens with this record a bit. And also, you know, because I've been so ill with the COVID. I got so ill I nearly died and how did you know? And it's taking me a long time to recover. I've got what they called now long term COVID, and it's going to take a long time to recover. And actually today, before we started this, I was working on my singing, practicing singing with a friend of mine who plays guitar, because I was really frightened that I wouldn't be able to sing anymore. Were you afraid you might die at some point. Um, No, that didn't cross my mind. Well, i'm asking because you were in the middle of a project about romantic poetry, which is, you know, there's the Kids in Half in Love with Easeful Death. Oh yeah, but I've known those lines forever, you know. No, I don't. I really don't think everything is about me. I'm not saying it. You thought it was about you, But I'm wondering what those lines were like when you were when you were quite sick. I wasn't doing it when I was quite sick. I was in fucking hospital. You weren't allowed to just sing that what you're telling me? No, okay, I was much too ill. All I remember about it is that I was in a very very dark place, and I'd presume that was being very close to death. Yeah, but I didn't think that at the time. Well I'm happy that wasn't the case. This is a fabulous album and it's a thrill to hear it, and I'm glad you finally got to do it. Yeah. Have you had any other ideas that you've had forever and you thought, no, the record company will never go for this. No, not really, not yet. You know, I am seventy four, she said, I'm not sure how many records I can go on making. I think at least I've got another one, and I'd like it to be songs, and I'd like to write some of them too. Do you have some ideas already? No, this record needs to come out. If I've got something ready to come out, it has to come out before I can turn to my next one. I've got ideas, and I'm going to sit down and write something, but I'm not feeling very secure about it. Well, listen, I hope everybody buys this album because it's terrific. Oh god, so do I because I really need the money. Well, you know, this whole thing, the pandemic really fucked me up, particularly just like you did everyone else. Do you mean financially as well. Yes, they were going to make a biopic of my life and if they had been able to do it, which of course they couldn't, I would have made a lot of money and I really need it. Well they do you think they'll go ahead and do it now that they have a chance. I think, I think. I hope So, I hope soon, but maybe not quick enough for me. It's really quite desperate. Your life did not get less interesting in the meantime, so there's no reason for them to stop. I think you should tell them, Oh, yeah, I know. I don't know if they realize that. I don't know. You know, the one thing about COVID is you can't see people in person, so a lot of old friends are connecting over phones or zoom or whatever else. Through your sickness, through putting out this album, have you been able to reconnect with some people in your life? Yes? Or no? I like zoom because you know, I use it for sort of. I have a group that I go to, very well known I won't say its name, which now you can do. You can do it on zoom, and it's very important to me. And if it wasn't for Zoom, I wouldn't be able to do it at all. Is that still a daily thing for you? Yeah? I mean I don't. I only go to a couple of meetings a week, but it's something I always will have to think. Okay, well, listen, it's been just wonderful to speak to you. I think we tried to talk to you after your last album, but I'm thrilled I got a chance to speak to you about this one. Well, I think I was already not COVID, but I was getting very ill already with all those things. You know, I've had a very hard time in the last couple of years, and whatever happened to me, it wasn't me hurting myself, it was coming from outside, all right. Well, take care of yourself now. Thanks Sally, Thank you so much. Thank you, Bruce. Thanks to Mary and Faithful for talking through her new album, She Walks in Beauty with Bruce. To hear a playlist of our favorite Mary and Faithful songs, head to Broken Record podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, a YouTube dot com slash Broken at the Podcast, where we can find extended cuts of new and old episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Records produced to help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafee. Our executive producer is Mia LaBelle. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries and if you like a show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. A theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond Peace