Memories, Dreams and Reflections

I really enjoyed this and I have also read "Faithfull". Intelligent, witty and honest. I am intrigued by 60s culture and social history, but it was equally interested to read about the ways she has stayed relevant into the 21st century.

Marianne Faithfull’s first autobiography, Faithfull, was published in 1994 and is a brilliant rock autobiography, probably something that just about anybody should read, as long as you can deal with the incredible self-absorption (hey, it’s a rock bio – what do you expect?). She followed it up with this book in 2008; sadly, though, it is simply not as good. It re-treads a lot of material as the first one (mommy and daddy’s doomed relationship is revisited, but without any new insights, other than “one of the reasons I was sent to the convent was so that my mother could have a sex life.”), but also tells interesting anecdotes of her grandfather and his Jewish wife in Vienna, so dipping back into the past is not all wrong! Finally moving ahead in time, it deals quite superficially with events that have come up in the years in between, which includes health issues (most importantly the fortunate, fluke-y just-in-time discovery of deadly cancer – Al Jourgensen had the same luck), friends dying, recording sessions, acting, and more tours. She also dwells on the Beats, her appreciation of them, and of experiencing the passing of William Burroughs, (hero or monster?), Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso.

The chapters are all over the place, some of which are devoted to a single friend’s memory (for Caroline Blackwood, Henrietta Moraes, Juliette Greco and Gregory Corso she becomes a sort of “Speaker for the dead”, a la the Orson Scott Card book in his Ender series, which I have just finished reading – which I guess is what happens when people get old and survive their friends, family, acquaintances), and one chapter covers her surreal conversation with Fabulous Beast (herself). Being a proto-goth, she gets gloomy too. “I think the apocalypse will appear for far more banal reasons than [the end of the Mayan calendar]: war, pestilence, famine, and global warming. And rampant greed. And, of course, sheer incompetence. It ain’t gonna get any better. I just hope my grandchildren get to see the world I grew up in and know what a tree is. It’s tragic, I know. I’m beginning to sound like a complete curmudgeon – but I am a curmudgeon! And now I see how curmudgeons get to be that way. This world sucks!”

She also goes back to the Sixties a lot in the text (and even more so in the pictures section), talking about how beautiful and stoned everyone was, but how the Sixties were really just a weak version of the Fifties, which she was too young to be involved with until later in life when she moved in with the Beats. “Being with George (Harrison) and Pattie (Boyd) was very relaxing. Mick and I were able to lie back on Moroccan cushions, get high and float away listening to George’s new songs.” She claims that Mick Jagger had nothing to do with the writing of “Ruby Tuesday”, despite getting a writing credit, but that Brian Jones had a large hand in it (more than any other Stones song), it “was a collaboration between Keith and Brian. Without Brian there wouldn’t be a ‘Ruby Tuesday’.” She talks about the Joe Orton play “Up Against It” that they were trying to cast the Beatles to make a movie of, which would have been edgy, and potentially career-destroying, but for which they may have built up enough popularity and credibility to pull off. In it, “the Archbishop of Canterbury turns out to be a woman, the [Beatles] get dressed up as women, commit adultery and murder, and are involved in the assassination of the Prime Minister.” Hmmm… tantalizing to think about what may have been, or if Mick Jagger and Ian McKellan had taken it up afterwards, as is the legend! (Orton was murdered by his gay lover, inspiring the Beatles song “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”).

We learn weird tidbits throughout, some of which complement the first book; for example, it seems that she lost all ability to speak French after her near-OD in Australia and six-day coma. Interesting, she also gets to sing an unused Roger Waters song from 1968, "Incarceration of a Flower Child". She gets catty with Paul McCartney, and Mick in a sort of backwards way. “Whatever we thought of Linda – and she didn’t make that great an impression on me – I think it was a credit to Paul that he didn’t marry a model. A module. Because that’s what all the others have ended up doing, they’ve married these modules. And they have children who also become modules.” Of course, Mick, Keith and Ron all married/allied with models/former models, and some of their kids have become models now too! “There was a lot of dark, creepy stuff in the sixties, I can tell you: The Process, Mel Lyman, Manson, Anton LaVey, and L Ron Hubbard. Those people were always trying to get hold of me. Somehow I managed to negotiate my way around them quite successfully. I didn’t get involved in any cults, apart from going up to Bangor for that regrettable weekend with the Maharishi and the Beatles, the weekend that Brian Epstein killed himself.” Inspection of Brian Epstein, inspection of Spanish Tony’s Vesuvio (“like all dealers, he didn’t consider himself just a dealer, he wanted to be something else, something a bit more grand, a maitre d’ to the hipoisie; thus the Vesuvio”), and regret about ever having anything to do with Kenneth Anger (she had played Lilith, “a cemetery-haunting female demon” in his film Lucifer Rising; “dabbling in the occult has a nasty way of casting its baleful influence long after you have left the scene – and accumulating vengeful force along the way”).

But things were much different then for privileged people like Faithfull. “The artistic community, even in the sixties, was very small. ‘The Sixties’ was actually a very few people. In the sixties you could go up to the Stones’ Maddox Street office and tell Mick some crazy idea you had and he’s listen to you – not that he’d probably do much about it, or Paul at Wimpole Street, but today it would be beyond belief what you’d have to do – apart from the fact that you wouldn’t want to! There’d be fourteen lawyers prancing, seven accountants simpering, managers mulling, minders, minions, middle-men, media mentors, marketeers.” The book is incredibly chatty, and at times the author doesn’t even try to cover up that this was all narrated to him: “”When I hear Gregory laughing while I’m reading his poetry on the album – which you must get – I see Gregory rise up with his wicked puckish grin, a wild jail kid, but so sweet.” At one point she even gets someone else to tell the story!

It is with great envy that I read about her collaboration with Nick Cave (!!), the Bad Seeds, and PJ Harvey (!!). Unfortunately, her chapter on Before The Poison, the recording where she collaborates with them, is brief, and she really doesn’t talk much about other musicians! Happily she also mentions being in Singapore, staying at the Raffles Hotel, and walking around the corner in search of an opium den to hang out on Bugis Street (also called “Boogie Street”, according to the local pronunciation, which Leonard Cohen wrote a book about), and nearly getting killed by the tough punks who used to hang out there (times have changed - now it’s a youth hang-out). And with drugs she’s still unrepentant, willing to find some good there. “I’m not prepared to feel that everything I’ve done in the last ten years is wrong. I am ready to admit that my body prefers it when I don’t drink, but I'm not sure about the rest of me! I’m convinced that there’s something in us deep down that needs a break from the regular life. My theory is that by keeping yourself just slightly off the straight and narrow you can avoid all sorts of things perhaps major things, that otherwise could spell trouble. I know that when I’ve been in top form, off drink and whatever, it’s then that I can get into all sorts of trouble – sexual pickles and all that stuff. I’ve even been known to marry the wrong person soon after sobering up.”

Of course, none of this changes that fact that we’re hearing all of this from the Marianne Faithfull, who along with Michelle Phillips became the vision of hippy chick beauty and youth. The fact that she’s aged like a wine into this incredible songbird is also a stunning achievement of someone who has really had it all, on both sides of the coin. What a life!!

The pictures are great, and the book even has an index!

It was quite a refreshing experience to read this book as it provides an honest, no holds barred insight into the "scene" of the days when I myself was young and aspiring - yes dreaming - to do and be so many things. Looking at current world-wide happenings the yesteryear days appear to have been harmless in comparison - thank you Marianne!! - Ing

What sets Marianne apart from all the other memories of the headshop kids... she wasn't a groupie talking about bedding Mick and the likes, she writes about it from an artists point of view.

her reflections on drug use, rehabilitation and staying clean are worth the price of the book !

This is a good book. Marianne Faithfull is deep and funny and she was there at that remarkable blur sometimes referred to as the '60's. 70's 80's 90's 2000's...

Fantastic / all the missing pieces I've wanted to know / but the myth and magic of her rich rich life left intact . Marriane is as honest as a cool clear creek. And wow /can anyone match her life so far ? She understood what she was looking at . She knew these folks. Her insights are better than anyone's , she was there , and she puts you there .

Liked her first autobiography. This was not as well written and repeated a lot of what was in the first.

i haven't read this book yet. She is not so wonderful woman than i expected. Thank you very much !!!

one thing I give this woman is kudos for being who she was....and she is still relivent....she is a rolling stone....very small club...muse of so many of their early songs. I show her today at the reception, a glass of wine in her hand...........I love album broken English..........stunning..........