Great interview, and glad to hear she's finally quit smoking.

When you read about long Covid, it beggars belief the recklessness people show.

Marianne Faithfull & Warren Ellis discuss their new album "She Walks In Beauty"

Marianne Faithfull and Courtney Love talk romantic poetry, cheating death and the joys of sober sex



Marianne Faithfull and Courtney Love are two of rock music’s great survivors. Both have weathered addiction, rough handling from the media and the music industry and the challenge of establishing their own artistry in the shadow of famous partners: Mick Jagger and Kurt Cobain, respectively.

Yet their origins could hardly be more different. Faithfull, 74, has the regal air of a daughter of English privilege, while Love, 56, has a scrappy, mile-a-minute energy that reflects her chaotic, hardscrabble upbringing and punk-rock adolescence. Friends since the 1990s, they seem both fond and protective of one another when they meet in Faithfull’s west London apartment one April afternoon, surrounded by antique furniture, oil paintings, memorabilia and piles of books.

Faithfull first attained celebrity as a member of the Rolling Stones’ inner circle at the height of their 1960s notoriety — in her hallway hangs a collage of newspaper cuttings from the infamous 1967 Redlands drugs bust of Jagger and Keith Richards, a gift from pop artist Richard Hamilton — but wasn’t taken seriously as a musician in her own right until her 1979 album “Broken English” set her on the path to cult status. Her husky charisma has since made her a magnet for alt-rock mavericks including Nick Cave, PJ Harvey and Beck.

Currently experiencing the long-term effects of an almost fatal COVID-19 infection last year, Faithfull uses an oxygen mask to breathe and suffers from chronic fatigue. “So basically I’m f—,” she says. Despite her illness, she has managed to complete her 21st solo album, “She Walks in Beauty,” which features 11 of her favorite 19th-century poems (by Keats, Shelley, Byron) set to music by Cave collaborator Warren Ellis.

Love visited her to talk about poetry, reputation and their mutual friend Hal Willner, a prolific producer who first worked with Faithfull on her 1987 album “Strange Weather” and died from COVID-19 complications in April 2020. “Bono called Marianne in the hospital on Zoom and literally she rose up,” says Love. “She was like, ‘We’re going to do this for Hal.’ And she got better. Dammit, Bono works.”

You’re both living in London at the moment…

Love: I’ve been here about 18 months, and I have an artist visa. I’m making my record here. It’s from a village elder point of view: This stuff happened. I would like to buy a house here if I can. I’m not leaving. I don’t like TMZ.

Faithfull: I’m from London. My family are all here, and I have friends here. I came back [from Paris] because [son] Nicholas asked me to, and I realized that he had never got enough of me. I was always somewhere else. I wanted to be more in his life and in my grandchildren’s lives. I’m a lot older than Courtney. It’s time for me to think like that.

How has the last year been for both of you?

Love: I was incredibly sick and I almost died of anemia [unrelated to COVID-19]. It’s a thing. You can die from it. But I started doing what my pain management doctor told me to do and taking CBD oil, and literally my symptoms have reversed.

Faithfull: I began making my album and then I got COVID, and I nearly died. The damage has been very bad. It’s my lungs, my memory and fatigue. It couldn’t be worse. I don’t know if I will ever be able to sing again. I have singing practice once a week, and I’m doing my best, but it’s very hard. I love touring, and it’s breaking my heart that I might possibly not be able to do it again. But I think there are ways around that, like filming. I might be able to do five shows one day: London, Paris, Berlin and two others. But I won’t be able to travel. I’m in Europe and here I’ll stay. That’s OK. I really am European.

How did the two of you first meet?

Love: We met in a perfunctory London rock way at [the British music TV show] “Top of the Pops” once, but the real connection, beyond Hal, was one of my very best friends and mentors, and my neighbor for many years: Carrie Fisher. Carrie had this guest house which was always reserved for Marianne. Marianne’s very much royalty in Los Angeles. We did a few things together, you, me and Carrie. Marianne and I are weirdly connected. [But] we can’t stand being compared to each other. It’s ridiculous.

Why do you think you get compared?

Faithfull: God knows why they do these stupid things. I don’t take any notice, and nor must you.

Love: It’s flattering, but it’s also cheap.

Faithfull: It’s a funny way of pushing you down.

Love: It’s the whole great man bull—.

You’ve both had to endure a great deal of misogyny and condescension. Do you ever envy younger female artists who don’t have to put up with that to the same degree?

Faithfull: I always thought that eventually, people would come around and understand women performing and singing and writing. What has happened is what I always thought would happen.

Love: When I was listening to your album, I felt like your whole life is embodied in these poems you’ve read. That’s why I can understand Shelley for the first time. And “The Lady of Shalott” [by Alfred, Lord Tennyson]. I know all the tragic woman imagery around it — I’ve even used some of that imagery myself — but you have read it for me for the first time at 56.

Faithfull: Oh darling, that’s exactly what I want. I want [for] people who didn’t know these poems [to] give them that without being pretentious. Warren Ellis told me that until he heard me read them, he didn’t really understand them and I think that might happen. I hope. It’s a question: What have I got to give now? And at the moment, I have to give this.

You started the album before you got COVID. How did you finish it?

Faithfull: Well, I got better. I didn’t know that I was going to get long-term COVID. I thought I was OK enough. And then [producer] Head and I recorded the second half of “She Walks in Beauty.” You can hear that those pieces are much more vulnerable. The ones I did pre-COVID are stronger. Post-COVID, the one that strikes me is “We’ll Go No More a Roving” [by Lord Byron]. It’s so shaky.

Love: You said this was Byron’s soft side, as opposed to his rock star side.

Faithfull: It’s very sexy.

Love: Oh, yeah. It’s like I went touring with Nine Inch Nails in ’95, and they had two songs every night [“Closer” and “Hurt”] and I thought, “Trent, you’re going to get laid for the rest of your life with those songs.” They were panty-droppers.

When I came over last, and you gave me [your 2018 album] “Negative Capability,” I wanted to ask you to tell me about Keats. [John Keats coined the phrase in 1817.] And it’s like you’ve answered all my questions. “La Belle Dame sans Merci” blew my mind.

Faithfull: The most incredible thing about Keats, Courtney, is that he died at 25, so these beautiful poems were all written before he died. He was a genius.

Love: Tell me about “The Prelude” [by William Wordsworth].

Faithfull: Well, when I was younger and I was studying this stuff at the Convent [St. Joseph’s Convent School, a Catholic girls school west of London], I really didn’t appreciate Wordsworth. I didn’t get him. But now, when I came to do this, I suddenly got it, like light bursting on my face. He’s so f— good. Those poems are composed with such perfection.

Love: I didn’t have a Commonwealth education — I’m Hollywood trash — so I had to learn this stuff on the fly.

Faithfull: Well, you’re doing well.

Love: Remember my friend Lana [Del Rey]? She did a poetry book and someone told me that interest in it helped increase the sales of [Robert] Frost and [Walt] Whitman.

Did you manage to get Marianne into Lana?

Love: No, she wasn’t buying it. She’ll get there.

Faithfull: No, not for me. Sorry.

Love: I looked at the credits on your album and I saw [Brian] Eno, and I was really impressed.

Faithfull: Well, he’s a very dear friend. He did a lot of organ. I didn’t want him to do synth pads, so he had to make that sound from the bottom up, and he did something very beautiful.

Love: And then you have Cave on piano. The kids love that.

Faithfull: Well, I love Nick. But Warren is the one I’m really in love with.

You seem to have been lucky with your friends…

Faithfull: Oh, God, yeah. And I’m still lucky. Keith [Richards] has helped me so much. And Marlon, his son. And Bono. I’ve had a lot of money problems, and they’ve helped me so much. [To Courtney] You’re looking very well.

Love: Thank you. I actually wake up happy every day. It’s crazy.

Faithfull: I can’t believe we did all that: spent so many years taking drugs, smoking cigarettes and drinking. I didn’t get anything out of that except “Sister Morphine” [her 1969 single written by Faithfull, Jagger and Richards]. It was a waste of my time.

Love: It’s weird that guys get something out of their addictions. I got good opportunities but s— songs. Sober songs are so much better.

Faithfull: They really are.

Love: Sober sex, I hadn’t even tried. And then I did and I was like, “Wait, what? This is great.”

Faithfull: And that’s one of the greatest fears we all have getting clean: Oh, my God. I won’t be able to f— anymore. But that is not so. Mind you, I’m so old, I don’t even think about it.

Love: Oh, come on! Your creative drive is born of one of the world’s epic libidos.

Faithfull: [Laughs] Well, that’s where it goes now.


Hal Willner.(Clarence Williams / Los Angeles Times)

I’d like to ask about Hal Willner’s passing.

Faithfull: I still have not recovered, and I never will.

Love: I remember Marianne was in the hospital and she didn’t know and we didn’t want to tell her.

Faithfull: It happened so quickly. One minute he was alive, and two days later, he was dead.

Love: The last text I have from him says, “I have a headache. I’ll get back to you.” He was so funny and such a tender friend. I made a tribute playlist on Instagram and the cover is you on your motorcycle in black leather [from the 1968 movie “The Girl on a Motorcycle”]. I ended it with the “SNL” horns he orchestrated. [Willner was “Saturday Night Live’s” longtime sketch music supervisor.] I don’t ever want to hear those horns again.

Faithfull: I’m never going back to New York. The only thing I had in New York that I really loved was Hal Willner. He was my best friend. “Broken English” was wonderful, but it wasn’t something I could have done again. I couldn’t have done anything without Hal, actually.

Love: With “Broken English,” you were presented to American kids as this great beauty, now broken, and you never were that. You were always an incredibly classy dame. And Hal knew that.

Faithfull: It was [Island Records founder] Chris Blackwell who saw me as so broken.

Love: And yet you were so insanely beautiful. You always had this class.

Faithfull: Well, I don’t know why, but Chris didn’t dig it.

Love: He wanted broken.

Faithfull: Yes. A lot of people did.
[www.latimes.com]

Quote
Stoneage
Yep, she was well above Jagger in the class pyramid. England was, and still is, a class society. There are still obvious reminders of the feudal society there.
Jagger is a social climber though having received a knighthood and all.

It is from his charitable contributions and work for Charities . All kidding aside those are the major criteria from her Royal Majesty for Knighthood .

My god, what happened to her? How did she get so huge?

Nice to see that Keith helped out.

Quote
Bliss
My god, what happened to her? How did she get so huge?

She just got older and wiser like some of us here on IORR.

Quote
Bliss
My god, what happened to her? How did she get so huge?

I'm sure long COVID added to years of being pretty immobile in the aftermath of a broken hip doesn't help...

Meanwhile, thanks to Mr DDDD for posting the conversation.

The Last Word: Marianne Faithfull on Fame’s Dark Side and the Evolution of ‘As Tears Go By’

The singer also discusses poetry, drugs, Mick Jagger, and the advice she lives by

By Kory Grow
April 30, 2021


Illustration by Mark Summers for Rolling Stone

[www.rollingstone.com]

"She Walks in Beauty" is available on YouTube and Spotify.

Pleeeeze can some someone paste up the rolling Stone interview ...Fanks



ROCKMAN

The Last Word: Marianne Faithfull on Fame’s Dark Side and the Evolution of ‘As Tears Go By’
The singer also discusses poetry, drugs, Mick Jagger, and the advice she lives by

Marianne Faithfull has lived several lifetimes in her 74 years. She was only 17 when the pop song “As Tears Go By” turned her into a star overnight in 1964, and she was in her early twenties when her relationship with Mick Jagger made her a tabloid lightning rod. After that ended, she fell deep into drugs, living for a while on the streets, before making a stunning comeback in 1979 with Broken English, an album of dark-hued, New Wave–influenced music that complemented the way her voice had grown deeper and more profound. She acted in theater and films and reinvented herself as a jazz chanteuse and dream-pop singer, all before issuing her page-turner of a memoir, Faithfull, in 1994. But nearly 30 years have passed since then, during which time she’s teamed with songwriters like PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, and Mark Lanegan for albums that have comprised her so-far unimpeachable third act.


Considering all the ways she’s redefined herself over the years, it’s no surprise that her latest record represents yet another new avenue for Faithfull. A collaboration with violinist and songwriter Warren Ellis, She Walks in Beauty finds Faithfull reciting poetry by England’s great romantic poets: Lord Byron, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth. Her voice, which is still warm and rich, adds rare depth to those artists’ words, and the record’s ambient music — performed by Ellis, Cave, Brian Eno, cellist Vincent Ségal, and producer-engineer Head — only heightens the words. Whether capturing the might of an Egyptian monument in Shelley’s “Ozymandias” or comparing a bird’s beauty to a place “where men sit and hear each other groan” in Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” she speaks the words in a way that conveys her experience.

When Faithfull spoke with Rolling Stone for the Last Word interview, that same sense of resolve came through the phone line. Although she was still recovering from a scary experience with Covid-19 from last year, she still spoke passionately and wittily about her philosophies and experiences, and the lessons she’s learned over the years.

You survived a lengthy bout with Covid last year. How are you feeling now?

It’s terrible. I got long-term Covid, where you get better from the virus, but you have leftover [symptoms]. Apparently, they now think that you do get better from long-term Covid; it’s not forever. That is good.

On your new album, you recite poetry by Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, and many others. What makes a good poem?

There are certain technical aspects that I really enjoy, like alliteration and really good rhyming. I think a really good poem has a rhythm to it. Like music, choice of words is very important. It’s quite a big thing, a great poem.
John Keats wrote, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” What do those words mean to you?
I keep that phrase right up there in my life, in my mind. They’re both quite hard to reach, but you can do it. You can try anyway.

You became famous when you were a teenager. What’s the best part of success and what’s the worst?

The best part is that some people start to appreciate and like your work. The worst part is fame, isn’t it? I think fame is pretty awful. The really, really famous people that everybody loves, they die — like Princess Diana. That’s a very extreme example of what fame can do. And there’s this awful thing I’ve been watching about poor little Britney Spears. Christ. Luckily, I’ve never been quite that famous or that grand, and certainly not that rich. And anyway, [my fame] was only for quite a short time. The rest of it has been solid, plugging hard work.

You wrote in your memoir that the law of pop music is that you have to give yourself away to get anything. Was anyone ever exempt?

Really, only a couple made so much money that they didn’t get ripped off. The Beatles, the Stones, but both of them had moments where they were being ripped off. Let’s not think about that, for God’s sake.

Who are your heroes and why?

Well, of course my great hero of all time is Shakespeare. I think he’s the most wonderful writer ever. And then Oscar Wilde. The great socialists in the world, Beatrice Webb. There are great Americans, too, like Edgar Allan Poe. Then there’s Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Napoleon is a bit of a hero.

He’s a bit controversial, though.

Yeah, but I think he’s pretty heroic, and the Duke of Wellington [who defeated Napoleon], too. They’re both heroic really. I think Churchill was a bit of a hero; when they really needed him, he was there.

What was your favorite book when you were a kid? And what does that say about you?

I don’t know what it says about me. I loved all the Narnia books — The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, all that. They’re wonderful. As I’m half-Austrian, I also grew up with Der Struwwelpeter and all that. I thought they were rather wonderful. And then there’s Hilaire Belloc, who wrote these wonderful poems called Cautionary Tales. Would you like to hear one? “There was a boy. His name was Jim. His friends were very good to him. They gave him tea and cakes and jam and slices of delicious ham and even took him to the zoo, which was where the dreadful fate befelled him, which I now relate. … “

What is your favorite book?
Actually I’m reading one that I really love at the moment, Miles Davis’ autobiography [Miles]. It’s brilliant. It’s really funny because it’s very dishonest in a way; the way he talks about other people with heroin problems compared to him is hysterical. [He makes it sound like] he was really good and didn’t really have a problem, but this other guy was terrible [laughs].

You managed to beat your heroin addiction decades ago. What did you learn from that time in your life?

I just wish I’d never touched any of that stuff, and cigarettes and even alcohol — actually all of it. I’d be a lot better now.

You’ve recorded your first hit, “As Tears Go By,” three times in your career — first when you were 17, then at 40, and most recently when you were 71. What age is the best for singing that song?

I liked the last one, the one I did on [2018’s] Negative Capability, best. It took me a long time to really get it. I thought the first one was just too bright and breezy and poppy, and the second one was too sad, and the third one is really balanced.

It’s interesting that a song that you sang as a teenager takes on more significance with time.

As you grow up, yes, of course it does. It was a very weird thing to do, to give me that song to sing when I was only 17. Both Mick [Jagger] and Keith [Richards] were 21 or 22 when they wrote it, but they are very brilliant.

How did dating Mick around that time make you a stronger woman?

I don’t know if it did. It almost destroyed me. Although it was wonderful, it was only four years. It was a wonderful time, and he was great, but I don’t think I fit into that life or what he wanted in a woman, that’s all. I couldn’t do it.

What did you learn from Rolling Stones manager Andrew Oldham all those years ago?

Oh, God, not much. He obviously gave me something, I suppose; it was through Andrew Oldham that I met Mick and Keith.

You wrote about how he misrepresented your character and turned you into this rich aristocratic kid, which wasn’t you at all.

Oh, yeah. I was “the angel with big tits.” Thanks a lot, man.

You’ve collaborated with so many wonderful people over the years — Hal Willner, Warren Ellis, Nick Cave —

Let’s take a moment to talk about Hal Willner. How am I going to live on this planet without Hal Willner? How is anybody? I wish he was alive. I wish he could hear this beautiful record I’ve made. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without years and years and years of friendship and love of Hal. Actually, my grandson — Oscar, my Oscar — is making a little film about him. I think it will be lovely.

What makes a good collaborator for you?

I really don’t know. It’s got to be someone where we both give to each other. Warren Ellis is just such a genius and Nick, too. What Warren did with the poetry is wonderful. The music, the piano that Nick put on, the work that Brian Eno did, Vincent Ségal, who plays cello, is just wonderful.

You’ve lived in London, Paris, New York, Ireland. What makes you feel like you’re at home?

I am at home on the planet. At least I have felt at home on the planet up ’til now. I did love Paris I must say. But my son really wanted me to come back to London. I think he deserved it. Of all the people I love in my life, and I love Nicholas very much, I think he got the least of me. He has every right to ask me to give him more and I want to. It’s not easy because we haven’t really spent that much time together. We’re making up for lost time. It’s hard work but we do love each other. I guess human relationships are difficult, aren’t they?

What do you feel younger generations could learn from yours?
I would say, ideally, to be kind to yourself and compassionate to yourself and others. Don’t judge yourself too harshly. If you can, stay in the moment. That’s what I did. I mean that gets harder, of course, as you get older, but I still try.
[www.rollingstone.com]

Fanks mister DDDDDD.........



ROCKMAN

EDIT: MisterDDDD beat me to it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-05-01 01:36 by Cristiano Radtke.

Thanks for posting. I can just hear Marianne saying every word.

Interview here with Marianne at about 2:30 minutes in. A biopic seems to be on the cards.

[www.bbc.co.uk]

Marianne Faithfull with Warren Ellis: She Walks in Beauty review – a magical return

Faithfull is on impeccable form in beautiful settings by Ellis of the Romantic poetry beloved of her youth



Phil Mongredien

Sun 2 May 2021

She Walks in Beauty marks the culmination of Marianne Faithfull’s longstanding love of the Romantic poets, first kindled at convent school in Reading in the early 1960s. Here, the works of Keats, Byron, Shelley, Tennyson and Wordsworth are brought vividly to life by her rich, weathered voice and impeccable intonation. She’s backed by imaginative musique concrète soundscapes courtesy of Warren Ellis, with contributions from Nick Cave on piano, cellist Vincent Ségal and Brian Eno, their ambient textures never overshadowing Faithfull, instead framing and accentuating her delivery.

The results are frequently beautiful, the new settings making even the most familiar texts (Ode to a Nightingale or The Lady of Shallot, say) sound fresh. And it’s all the more impressive given its difficult genesis. Fresh from the excellent Give My Love to London (2014) and Negative Capability (2018), Faithfull had already recorded half of her vocals for the album with PJ Harvey producer Head before she contracted the coronavirus last spring. She almost died (she discovered later that her medical notes had specified “palliative care only”), and ended up spending three weeks in intensive care. Her slow return to health clearly made this a difficult album to finish – Faithfull has confessed to feeling especially nervous recording a stirring Ozymandias – but we should be thankful that she was able to.

[www.theguardian.com]

Marianne Faithfull: “It took a new generation to appreciate what I could really do – it took a hell of a long time”

By Paul Nolan
May 6, 2021

[www.hotpress.com]

Marianne Faithfull Realizes Her Dream Project With 'She Walks in Beauty'


Rosie Matheson

By David Chiu
5/15/21

[www.newsweek.com]

Love her works.

Definitely worth watching this one.

[en.wikipedia.org]