Marianne Faithfull
MARIANNE: “People were sneering at me at school because we didn’t even have a telephone. No car, no gramophone, no father! And yet I had this fantastic secret history involving white tribute horses from the Aegean and Charlemagne, and Moorish ancestors on vast estates liberating the slaves in the salt mines.”
“The dolly girls all jibbled and jumped up and down and shook their moneymakers, doing little go-go steps in their thigh-length white boots. I didn’t want to compete with that, so I decided to go as far as I could in the other direction. I simply stood there in front of the microphone, very still, my hands dangling by my side and sang from some place deep inside me and out came this clear, ethereal voice. It wasn’t the least sexy or hip. It was about as far as you could get from sexy.”
I have been slightly obsessed with these music/style blogs that are chock full of pictures and quotes by musicians, groupies and scenesters from the 60s and 70s, such as The Desertshore. Such deliciousness. One lady I’ve been interested in lately is Marianne Faithfull, who I’ve also quoted on the SERIOUS FUN page. I suppose I’m glad she was lovely and doomed-seeming and somehow made it though and is alive and making albums today. It’s boring and depressing when all the ladies who were eccentric or lonely are painted as tragic when men in the same roles, with the same histories, are often lauded as having been geniuses (see Lou Reed for an example).
- Amber
