Remembering British Singer Marianne Faithfull

Summary

Fresh Air Episode Summary: Remembering British Singer Marianne Faithfull

Introduction

In the February 7, 2025 episode of Fresh Air, hosted by David Bianculli, NPR pays tribute to the legendary British singer, songwriter, and actress Marianne Faithfull, who passed away at the age of 78. The episode delves into her prolific career, personal struggles, and enduring legacy through two intimate interviews conducted by Terry Gross—one from 1994 and another from 2005.

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Early Career and Discovery

Marianne Faithfull's journey in the music industry began at the tender age of 17. In 1964, she recorded "As Tears Go By," one of the first compositions by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, under the management of Andrew Oldham, the Rolling Stones' manager. This song marked her initial success and established her as a distinctive voice in the British pop scene.

Notable Quote:

• [00:57] Marianne Faithfull reflects on her hit song, singing, “It is the evening of the day I sit and watch the children play. Smiling faces I can see but not for me I sit and watch as his goodbye.”

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Personal Struggles and Resilience

Despite her early success, Faithfull's life was marred by numerous personal challenges, including a tumultuous relationship with Mick Jagger, drug addiction, a suicide attempt, breast cancer, hepatitis C, and hospitalization due to COVID-19. Her resilience shone through as she overcame these hardships, continuing to perform as a cabaret artist and acting in film and television.

Notable Quote:

• [06:46] When discussing her heroin use, Faithfull candidly states, “I used it as a coping mechanism for coping with my life. And it worked for a while, but it did have a tremendous drawback, which was that it was addictive and it would kill you.”

---

Artistic Evolution and Influences

Faithfull's artistic repertoire spanned 22 solo albums, showcasing her ability to interpret a diverse range of songs with raw and intense vocals. She collaborated with renowned artists like PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Steve Earle, and Angelo Badalamenti, and explored various musical genres beyond her initial pop roots.

Notable Quote:

• [15:05] Reflecting on her contralto voice, Faithfull remarks, “There are very few real contraltors, and I'm one of them.”

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1994 Interview Highlights

In her 1994 interview, coinciding with the release of her autobiography, Faithfull discusses her realization of lacking a personal narrative apart from her association with the Rolling Stones. She recounts her discovery by Andrew Oldham at a party and the resultant portrayal in the media.

Notable Quotes:

• [03:23] “I think that's one of the saddest things in the book, that bit where I'm in Hazelden and they asked me to tell my story and I actually rang Ellen Smith, my publicist, and said to her, please send me up and down with the Rolling Stones because they want my story.”
• [05:58] Reflecting on her initial public image, Faithfull shares, “I thought it was a hoot. I remember taking it back to my mum and sitting in Milman Road reading it to my mother and Chris, my brother. We just fell about laughing.”

---

2005 Interview Highlights

The 2005 interview captures Faithfull's continued evolution as an artist. She discusses her later works, including the 2005 CD "Before the Poison," and her collaborations with modern musicians. Faithfull also opens up about her efforts to overcome smoking addiction and the impact of her mother's struggles with emphysema and alcoholism.

Notable Quotes:

• [36:37] On quitting smoking, she explains, “I've got the beginning of emphysema and my mother died of emphysema and alcoholism. So I kind of didn't really want history to repeat itself.”
• [35:11] Addressing her unique position in pop music, Faithfull reflects, “I thought Broken English was the end. I thought after that I would die.”

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Legacy and Conclusion

Marianne Faithfull's legacy is a testament to her unwavering spirit and artistic integrity. From her early days as a pop icon to her later years as a respected cabaret artist and actress, Faithfull remained a symbol of resilience and continuous reinvention. Her ability to navigate personal demons while producing evocative and timeless music ensures her enduring influence in the realms of contemporary arts and culture.

Notable Quote:

• [34:37] On her survival through hardships, Faithfull poignantly states, “I tried incredibly hard not to [survive], but finally I did accept that I had to survive. And there must be some reason why I had to survive. And I might as well accept it.”

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Closing Remarks

David Bianculli wraps up the episode by highlighting Marianne Faithfull's indelible mark on music and culture, ensuring that her story remains an inspiring narrative of triumph over adversity.

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Notable Musical Performances from the Episode

• "Sister Morphine" (Recorded in 1969): A haunting reflection of Faithfull's tumultuous relationship with Mick Jagger.

  • [07:04] “The scream on the ambulance is sounding in my ear Tell me Sister Morphe how long have I been lying?”

• "Pirate Jenny" (From her album 20th Century Blues): Showcases Faithfull’s dramatic vocal prowess inspired by Kurt Weill.

  • [19:01] “You lads see me wash the glasses, wipe the floors, make the beds and the best of servants you can kindly throw me pennies.”

• "I'm into Something Good" (From her 1964 hit playlist): Reflects her early pop sensibilities.

  • [27:43] “Woke up this morning feeling fine there's something special on my mind Last night I met a new guy in the neighborhood.”

---

Marianne Faithfull’s journey, as portrayed in this Fresh Air episode, is one of profound transformation and enduring artistry. Her ability to navigate the complexities of fame, personal loss, and artistic expression serves as an inspiring legacy for future generations.

Transcript

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[David Bianculli]

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David B. And Cooley. Today we're remembering Marianne Faithfull, the recording artist and actress who died last week at age 78. We'll listen back to two interviews Terry Gross conducted with her, one from 1994, the other from 2005. In 1994, Marianne Faithfull had just published her autobiography. When she was 17, a chance meeting in London with Andrew Luke Oldham, who managed a young blues group called the Rolling Stones, led her to record before they did, one of the first compositions by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It was as Tears Go by and was a hit for Marianne faithful in 1964.

[Marianne Faithfull]

It is the evening of the day I sit and watch the children play. Smiling faces I can see but not for me I sit and watch as his goodbye.

[David Bianculli]

She had a string of popular recordings in the UK and established quickly a reputation she would develop and build upon all her life, interpreting the songs of others in her distinctly emotional way. She appeared on TV lip syncing her hit records, but seldom looked at the camera, caught instead in some sort of pensive mood. And she acted on stage and film as well. In 1967, she appeared on stage opposite Glenda Jackson in Chekhov's Three Sisters. In 1969, she appeared in a film version of Hamlet playing Ophelia. But with success came complications. Famously, she became Mick Jagger's girlfriend, then overdosed in a suicide attempt and fell into a coma. She survived that as later in life she also survived heroin addiction, breast cancer, a decade long bout with hepatitis C and most recently a hospitalization for COVID 19. But when she could, she performed as a cabaret artist and acted on film and television, including playing God in three episodes of the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. Marianne Faithfull recorded 22 solo albums, and the range of songs she covered over the decades was breathtakingly diverse. Just as her vocals were raw and intense, she recorded songs by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Kurt Viall, and collaborated with Steve Earle and Angelo Badalamenti. Terry Gross first spoke with Marianne Faithfull in 1994 upon the publication of an autobiography. In the book, she writes that when she went into rehab in 1985, part of the therapy process was for each person to tell his or her story. That's when she realized there was a blank in her life. She Had a sense of being in the Rolling Stones scene when she and Mick Jagger were lovers in the 60s, but she had no idea what her own story was.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I think that's one of the saddest things in the book, that bit where I'm in Hazelden and they asked me to tell my story and I actually rang Ellen Smith, my publicist, and said to her, please send me up and down with the Rolling Stones because they want my story.

[Terry Gross]

Which was a book about the Stones.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Yes, that's what I. Sort of. Very telling, you know.

[Terry Gross]

What led to that feeling that you didn't know what you were?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, I didn't know when I said that that I didn't have a story. I mean, I still thought that my story was the same story as the Rolling Stones. I didn't learn. I didn't figure this out for another year. I'm very slow.

[Terry Gross]

So tell us the story of how you met Mick Jagger.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, I went along to a party with my first boyfriend, John Dunbar, who was a friend of Peter and Gordon, and Paul McCartney was going out with Jane Asher. It's so hard to remember all these things. And somehow John was always up for a party and especially then when we were very young. I mean, I was 17, he must have been 19, 1920, no more. But you know, it was just a party. But it was a dead glam party, I suppose, even for London. And it was a lot of fun, I suppose, yes. I mean it's. It's somewhat sort of colored in my imagination now by the fact that I was discovered there. But.

[Terry Gross]

What do you mean you were discovered there?

[Marianne Faithfull]

I was just. Well, that's where Andrew Oldham saw me. I was discovered by several people at that party. Actually, Andrew Oldham is the only person I gave my address to.

[Terry Gross]

And he was the producer of your first records and of the Rolling Stones.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Yes, he managed the Rolling Stones, made their early records.

[Terry Gross]

Now what did he discover in you? Was it your look or did he know that you sang?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Oh, no, no, he didn't know I sang. That was just a sort of bit of luck, I think.

[Terry Gross]

In your memoir you reprint a press release that was written for when as Tears Go by was released. And it says Mary Unfaithful is the little 17 year old blonde who still attends a convent in Reading. Daughter of the Baroness Ariso, she is lissome and lovely with long blond hair.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Lot of alliteration in this press release, isn't there?

[Terry Gross]

A shy SM and a liking for people who are long haired and socially conscious. Marianne Diggs, Marlon Branda Woodbine cigarettes, poetry, going to the ballet and wearing long evening dresses. She is shy, wistful waif, like. Now, what did you think of that image of yourself?

[Marianne Faithfull]

I thought it was a hoot. I remember taking it back to my mum and sitting in Milman Road reading it to my mother and Chris, my brother. We just fell about laughing. And I never in my wildest dreams thought that people would think I was like that. Although I did dig Marlon Brando, that's true. And I was at a convent and my mother was a baroness. But apart from that. But then again, you know, I can't be too sort of sticky about this, because it's quite obvious that none of us really see ourselves as others see us.

[Terry Gross]

Now, you ended up doing a lot of drugs, doing a lot of heroin. How did you start doing heroin?

[Marianne Faithfull]

I used it as a coping mechanism, I think.

[Terry Gross]

For coping with what?

[Marianne Faithfull]

For coping with my life. And it worked for a while, but it did have a tremendous drawback, which was that it was addictive and it would kill you.

[Terry Gross]

How long did it take you to figure that out?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Ages. Very long time. But I did figure it out eventually, thank God.

[Terry Gross]

Now, I want to play a song that you wrote the lyrics for called Sister Morphine that was released in England in 1969. Tell me a little bit about where you were in your life when you wrote the song and what the lyrics are about.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I don't know. It's a very weird thing about Sister Morphine because, you know, it was knocking about the house for six months and Mick was playing it all the time.

[Terry Gross]

Playing. Playing the melody, playing the.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Yes, the basic thing. Da, da da da da that thing all the time. So it went into my sort of whole sort of nervous system. Blood, bones, everything. I really had it in my head in every. I knew it by heart, let's say. Say that. And then, I mean, I remember it and I'm sure Mick does too. It was very peculiar. I just sat down, picked up a legal pad and a pencil and wrote it out, you know, and there it was. But I do that sometimes. It's obvious. I work on it in my head and then when it's all ready, I do it.

[Terry Gross]

Why don't we hear Sister Morphine? This is Marianne faithful, recorded in 1969.

[Marianne Faithfull]

The scream on the ambulance is sounding in my ear Tell me Sister Morphe how long have I been lying? What am I doing? Why does a doctor have no pain? Oh, I can crawl across the floor can you see Sister Morphine Just trying.

[Terry Gross]

To start Marianne Faithful is my guest and she's written an autobiography called Faithville. The record company Decca, you say, yanked this record about two days after it was released.

[Marianne Faithfull]

They took it off the shelves.

[Terry Gross]

What was their objection?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, there were many. The lyrics were very ahead of their time. It's one thing for Lou Reed to sing heroine. Obviously, it was completely. This is something I really didn't understand, that this thing about me being this beautiful little angel was real. I never really believed that. I couldn't believe it. So I suppose for Decca, you know, the last thing they put out by Marianne Faithful, I can't remember what it was, was Summer Night, say I think it was that was in 1965. And then in 1969, they're given sister morphine and they couldn't handle it.

[Terry Gross]

You said that after you became a junkie that it actually brought you an anonymity that you hadn't known since you were 16, since 17, that is you, you were living on the street, did that. I'm sure that wasn't exactly, though, the kind of anonymity that you wanted.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, I hadn't wanted celebrity in the first place. I just went to a party and got discovered and I hadn't had time to think about whether I wanted it or not. So the anonymity I got in the street was very valuable to me.

[Terry Gross]

Where were you living? How did you live during those years?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, I lived on a wall. I lived on a wall in soho. And it was an amazing time for me when I really had couldn't take it. I could always go back to my mother's, you know, it wasn't like I had nothing. I wasn't exactly the same as the street people, but they didn't mind that.

[David Bianculli]

Marianne Faithfull speaking to Terry Gross in 1994. After a break, we'll listen to a later conversation from 2005. This is FRESH AIR.

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[Marianne Faithfull]

OPB about the Northwest.

[Terry Gross]

I'm Jen Chavez.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Listen to the Evergreen podcast from opb.

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[David Bianculli]

We're continuing our remembrance of singer, songwriter and actress Marianne Faithfull, who died last week at age 78. Let's switch now to an interview Terry recorded with her in 2005. Marianne Faithfull had just released a new CD called Before the Poison, featuring several songs she had co written with PJ Harvey and Nick Cave. This song, mystery of Love, has words and music by PJ Harvey.

[Marianne Faithfull]

When you're not my size the world's in tune and I'm a fool when you're not in my S Then everything just fades from you. The mystery of love belongs to you.

[Terry Gross]

Now. Your voice is very dark. Your voice is very different from the way it was at the start of your career.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, obviously.

[Terry Gross]

Yes. Well, some people's voices change more than others.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Mine was always, you know, I studied singing at school when I was young, and my singing teacher used to say to me in hushed tones, you know, you have a soprano now, but I think if you're very, very lucky, it will become a contralto.

[Terry Gross]

Why did your teacher think that that would be good luck if it did?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, it's a very rare thing to have. It's Kathleen Ferrier. You know, there are very few real contraltors, and I'm one of them.

[Terry Gross]

I don't know what you'll make of this, but I think of you as being similar to Billie Holiday and Lottie Lena, as having as great singers whose voices were very different at the beginning and end of their careers.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Of course, but that's partly technical, like I told you, but it's also experience. It's in my case, I mean, thank you very much for comparing me in any way with my great heroines Billie Holiday and Lottelegna. But in my case, and I'm sure in their case, you know, a lot of it is down to experience. You get the voice you really want, you get What I suppose a writer would call it finding my voice.

[Terry Gross]

Was there anything that you missed about that pure soprano that you had? You know, the high notes or that?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Sure, yeah. I mean, if I hadn't been discovered by Andrew Oldham and gone into the pop business, I would have probably either become an actress or. Or I might have gone to the Royal Academy of Music in London and I could have sung Mozart. I would have enjoyed that. But on the other hand, I kind of. It was very exciting to be in, at the beginning of a new thing, which is what was happening in London in the early 60s. And I was right there.

[Terry Gross]

You know, it's interesting, like, as Tears Go by, which is your famous first hit, you're singing in an almost uninflected voice.

[Marianne Faithfull]

That's what Andrew wanted.

[Terry Gross]

That's what he wanted. Why? This is Andrew. Luke Oldham was your producer and he was the Rolling Stones producer.

[Marianne Faithfull]

He was my manager.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, I'm sorry. Okay.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Yeah. And. And I suppose he was the producer, too. Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

So why did he want it uninflected?

[Marianne Faithfull]

I don't know. I think he wanted me to sound like Mick.

[Terry Gross]

Huh.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I really don't know. You'd have to ask Andrew.

[Terry Gross]

It's so interesting because there's so much drama in your singing now.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, yeah, but that's my natural thing. Maybe I didn't have that yet.

[Terry Gross]

Mm. Well, you know, you mentioned that I.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Was only 17, right?

[Terry Gross]

Right.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I don't think I had any.

[Terry Gross]

Any drama.

[Marianne Faithfull]

No. And I was terribly, terribly nervous. So probably the natural thing I did was just sort of do what I do when I'm very frightened, is pretend I'm very small and stay very still and do as little as possible.

[Terry Gross]

Now, you mentioned that Laddilena is one of your music heroes, so I thought maybe we could listen to a recording in which you sing Kurt Weil and you made a recording. You've done a lot of Kurt Vile music.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I've done two records of the Brecht Weil canon. The first one was the cabaret record, which was 20th century blues, which I love. But my actual total favorite of all time is the seven deadly sins. But play something from 20th century blues. Play Pirate Jenny. I like Pirate Jenny because it's so fierce.

[Terry Gross]

And Paul Trueblood is at the piano and he's all.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Trueblood is such a great musician, and I was so lucky to work with him, and I'm very fond of him.

[Terry Gross]

Well, let's go for the drama and hear Pirate Jenny. And this is from Marian Faithfull's album 20th Century Blues with Paul Trueblood at the piano.

[Marianne Faithfull]

You lads see me wash the glasses, wipe the floors, make the beds and the best of servants you can kindly throw me pennies. And I thank you very much. And you see me ragged and tattered in this dirty hotel. You don't know in hell who's talking. You still don't know in hell who's talking. Yet one fine day there will be roars from the harbor, and you'll ask, what is all that screeching for? And you'll see me smiling as I dunk the glasses. And you'll say, what's she got to smile at for? And the ship, eight sails shining, 55 cannons white. Sir waits there at the quay you say work on. Wipe the glasses, my girl, and just slip me a dirt.

[Terry Gross]

Marianne Faithful. How were you introduced to the music of Kurt Weill?

[Marianne Faithfull]

I sort of grew up with it, you know, my. Both my parents. I don't know how they did it. I don't know how my mother did this, but she brought 78s with her from Vienna. And a lot of the songs on 20th century blues are my mother's favorite songs or my father's favorite songs. Like, my father's favorite song was Falling in Love Again.

[Terry Gross]

Huh.

[Marianne Faithfull]

And he loved Cole Porter, and he loved all sorts of things like that.

[Terry Gross]

So is that, like, the first music you heard?

[Marianne Faithfull]

I suppose it is, yes. Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

Was your mother a singer? I had read that she.

[Marianne Faithfull]

No, no, no, no, no, no. My mother was a dancer.

[Terry Gross]

Oh.

[Marianne Faithfull]

She was very young, of course, and she was only 24 when Mr. Hitler marched in to Vienna in the Anschluss, but she was a dancer in Berlin, and she, as she would be coming into the theater to rehearse as the corps de Ballet for Mr. Reinhard, would see Kurt Weyl and Bertolt Brecht staggering out in the morning, having been up all night writing the Threepenny Opera. And they would all bob a little curtsy and say, guten morgen, Mr. Weil. Guten morgen, Mr. Brecht, when you were.

[Terry Gross]

Growing up, did she have, like, clothes from her costumes from when she danced in the closet?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Not much, no. I just have a very beautiful piece of chiffon and some beads. I have very little. She didn't bring any of that much with her. No. I don't know what happened to it.

[Terry Gross]

But that sense of theater wasn't.

[Marianne Faithfull]

It's as if she wanted to leave it all behind and have a new life. She'd had quite a hard time, I think, during the war. My grandmother was Jewish, you know. And she met my my father was a spy. I mean, it's so incredible. It's amazing. And she was his contact in Vienna. So it was really, I think she was really happy to marry my father and get out. Unfortunately, of course, the marriage was a disaster.

[Terry Gross]

But I think they separated when you were six or something, right?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Yes.

[Terry Gross]

And then you lived with your mother.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I did, yes.

[David Bianculli]

Marianne Faithfull speaking to Terry Gross in 2005. Marianne Faithfull died last week at age 78. After a break, we'll hear more of their conversation and critic at large, John Powers Reviews I'm Still Here, the Brazilian film nominated for an Oscar this year as Best Picture. I'm David Biancooley and this is Fresh Shader.

[Marianne Faithfull]

You must leave now. Take what you need you think will last. But whatever you wish to keep, you'd better grab it.

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[Terry Gross]

Now I want to mention another song that seems a little out of character for you on your previous cd, which was.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, my previous cd, which I do love. You mean Kissing Time?

[Terry Gross]

Yes.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Was in fact a very experimental work. I wanted to learn about the new technology. That's what I did it. And so I went to the best people like Billy Corgan, like Beck, like Jarvis Cocker, like Damon.

[Terry Gross]

Well, the song, a song here that strikes me as a really interesting choice. A very kind of out of character is I'm into something good, which was.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Oh, that was just fun.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. Well, it's, I mean, that was a Herman's hermits hit in 1970.

[Marianne Faithfull]

You've got to remember when we did Kissing Time, the World was a different place, and we could have fun, and we did, and we loved it.

[Terry Gross]

The year that. That was a hit into something good in 1964 was, I think, the year.

[Marianne Faithfull]

It was the year, as tears go by.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. The year. And I think it was about that time that you started on tour. And you went on a tour, not with Herman's Daughter, not with Herman Hermit, but with Freddie and the Dreamers and.

[Marianne Faithfull]

And the Hollies. They were good.

[Terry Gross]

Jerry and the Pacemakers.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Yep.

[Terry Gross]

Where did you see yourself fitting in.

[Marianne Faithfull]

As I didn't fit in. I was completely out of place. And I actually believed that I would go back to school when the tour was over and pick up my life again.

[Terry Gross]

Was it. Were you, like, the only girl in.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I was in the tour, and what I was doing was reading my A level books.

[Terry Gross]

Oh. Cause you were still in school.

[Marianne Faithfull]

That's what I thought I was, yes. But I do remember very well how kind the Hollies were to me. Really sweet.

[Terry Gross]

Did the guys on the tour try to be protective or try to take advantage of you?

[Marianne Faithfull]

No, of course they didn't. I mean, I kind of. You know, I did learn the meaning of the word tour. Romance. I thought that was rather fun. Why not?

[Terry Gross]

Well, I'm gonna play. I'm into something Good from your previous album, Kiss in Time.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Good. I think it's charming.

[Terry Gross]

Me, too.

[Marianne Faithfull]

And, you know, now in this world, I could never do something like that again. That's why it's called before the Poison.

[Terry Gross]

That's why the new CD is called that.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Yeah. But let's remember the days when we could do something like this.

[Terry Gross]

Okay. So this is Marian Faithful from her previous cd, Kiss in Time.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Woke up this morning feeling fine there's something special on my mind Last night I met a new guy in the neighborhood oh, yeah Something tells me I I'm into something good he's the kind of guy who's not too shy and I can tell he's my kind of guy he danced close to me Like I hoped he would oh, yeah Something tells me I'm into something good.

[Terry Gross]

That'S Marianne Faithful from her previous CD, Kiss in Time, the 1964 hit I'm into something good and she has a new CD called Before the Poison.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Much darker.

[Terry Gross]

At what point did you start getting to know the. And I assume that you did at some point, the Andy Warhol factory crew.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I didn't.

[Terry Gross]

You never knew them?

[Marianne Faithfull]

No, I never did.

[Terry Gross]

It just seems to me you'd have connected at some point.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Never, never, never, never, never. I went to New York once with Andrew, and what I did do was meet up with Al Grossman and Bobby Neweth. And it was the time when Bob Dylan had had his motorbike accident. And I think I had my first joint with Bobby Neweth. And I was up all night being.

[Terry Gross]

Sick from the joint.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Mm. I was 18.

[Terry Gross]

Right.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Wasn't able. Didn't know anything. Just couldn't deal with it.

[Terry Gross]

So, you know, I'm wondering what you thought, because you must have been aware of this, whether you knew the Velvet Underground personally or not.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Oh, I thought they were wonderful, but I had a sense of self preservation, which told me, do not go to New York. You will die.

[Terry Gross]

Right. Because you'd get so deep into it with.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I would. I would be. It would have been another Edie Sedgwick, you know, it was quite bad enough in London, if I may say so, but, I mean, it would have been too much for me. At least I knew London.

[Terry Gross]

What did you make of it? When the Velvet Underground recorded Venus and.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Furs, I didn't really think about it.

[Terry Gross]

I asked this in case our listeners are confused.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, no, My great, great uncle, yes. Was Baron Leopold von Sacher Marzoch, who gave his name to masochism and wrote a book called Venus and Furs. Yeah. I mean, I sort of noticed it, but didn't really notice it. There were other songs on the Velvet Underground that I thought were better. I didn't think that was one of the best. I'm a huge. And was always a huge fan of Andy Wall before I got discovered and all that stuff happened. My mother took me to see a huge Andy Warhol retrospective at the Tate. I went to see the Picasso retrospective. I went to see the surrealist retrospective. It was wonderful. You know, I had a wonderful life before all that stuff happened.

[Terry Gross]

Did you feel. I mean, you've lived in a very unconventional world your whole adult life?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, and my whole life as a child.

[Terry Gross]

That's what I was wondering.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Yeah. My parents were extremely unconventional, and I was brought up in a delightful bohemian manner. So I sailed right into swinging London with no problem.

[Terry Gross]

Tell us a little bit about the delightful bohemian manor that you were brought up in.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, my father was a real idealist. After the war, he formed a commune. Not like a 60s commune, a 50s or even a 40s commune. More like an Iris Murdoch kind of thing. Which. And the purpose of this place, which was called Brazier's park, was to change the world and to teach people. Only Europeans. He couldn't really go further than that to live together in harmony so that war would never happen again. And that was my father's mission. My mother was also an idealist in a way, but not quite as serious as my father. And she didn't really like it at Braziers Park. She didn't like living in a commune and it split up. And she thought she was marrying an English gentleman, you know, and she thought she would have a much more conventional life. She didn't realize she was marrying this wonderful world class loon.

[Terry Gross]

Did you live on the commune at all?

[Marianne Faithfull]

I used to go at weekends. I had a wonderful time.

[Terry Gross]

What was it like as a girl?

[Marianne Faithfull]

There was a farm. I watched calves being born. I had a friend who had a pony. I didn't have anything to do with the commune. I was just out from dawn till dusk.

[Terry Gross]

And did your father talk to you about the philosophy behind it?

[Marianne Faithfull]

No, not till I got much older. And then I would. Then I found it very interesting, you know, he used to give courses on Alexander Pope and things like that. Before I wrote my book, he did a course specially really for me, on the writing of autobiography.

[Terry Gross]

You're kidding.

[Marianne Faithfull]

No.

[Terry Gross]

How did it affect the writing of your 1994 autobiography?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, he really helped. He was a really great teacher, you know. He was a professor at Bedford College in London. He taught me a lot. For instance, I learned in his course about autobiography that it was absolutely essential to put dialogue in or it got very boring.

[Terry Gross]

Well, that's always interesting to me because I read so many autobiographies and I always think, who has the memory to really remember what somebody said and what you said back?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, you can't really, but you can make a rough guess.

[Terry Gross]

Mm.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I wrote it from my perspective.

[Terry Gross]

Mm.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I don't put thoughts and feelings into other people. I wrote about me and what I felt and what I did. And I remember everything. And I remember how I felt. I remember my motives, I remember what I did and what I thought of things I saw around me. And in fact, I was very, very hard on myself. I realize that now. But I didn't see any other way, any other honorable way to be.

[Terry Gross]

How far away does the really hard time seem to you when you were homeless?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Long, long time ago, really. I know I was very lucky to get through it. It was obviously something I needed to learn. And in a strange way, I learned some very positive things, you know?

[Terry Gross]

Have you asked yourself why you think you survived?

[Marianne Faithfull]

No.

[Terry Gross]

Why so many other people don't?

[Marianne Faithfull]

I guess every no junkie dies in vain. Everybody who dies for Each one who dies, another survives. I don't really know why I survived. I tried incredibly hard not to, but finally I did accept that I had to survive. And there must be some reason why I had to survive. And I might as well accept it. And when I did that, everything got a lot easier.

[Terry Gross]

Of course, you occupy a kind of unique spot in pop music now because, you know, you were a teenage pop star. But what you're doing now is somewhere between.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, princess. Yes.

[Terry Gross]

What you're doing now is a kind of. What you're doing now is a kind of hybrid of cabaret and theater, music and pop and rock.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I don't really do cabaret. I do rock and roll, sort of with a lot of drama. I don't know what I do. I do what I do, you know.

[Terry Gross]

And if you don't mind my mentioning.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Your age is that I don't mind. I've just turned 58.

[Capital One Ad]

Right.

[Terry Gross]

And, you know, back when you were starting in the 60s, there still was the sense of what do rock and rollers do when they get older?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, I didn't think I would.

[Terry Gross]

You didn't think you'd live that long?

[Marianne Faithfull]

No way. I thought. I mean, I thought Broken English was the end. I thought after that I would die. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I had to make another record.

[Terry Gross]

And Broken English was what, 1979?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Yeah, right. I thought that was it. I thought, go out in a blaze of glory. Off you go.

[Terry Gross]

Before the interview started, you mentioned to me that you stopped smoking about three weeks ago.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Three weeks ago.

[Terry Gross]

And why did you decide to stop after all these years?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, I've been wanting to stop for about a year because I've got the beginning of emphysema and my mother died of emphysema and alcoholism. So I kind of didn't really want history to repeat itself. So I did everything I could. I went to a hypnotist, I read Alan Carr, I did all these things. Nothing worked. Then just before I came to Americay, I got really bad bronchitis, really bad. And I could not even think of smoking. So I didn't. I stopped. And I'm using a patch. Of course, I'm beginning to not need the patch now. It's sort of getting easier. I've done this whole interview without a patch. They make me sick. They actually are rather like bad speed. But, you know, time went by, the bronchitis got better. I've had some terrible moments where of craving. But my doctor in Paris did. It's very like giving up drugs, you know, they don't last long, the craving, they last about five minutes. So you just find something else to do. You talk to somebody, you put your makeup on, you do anything, you wash your knickers, anything you can think of. And the craving will pass. And then it's gone.

[Terry Gross]

What is the action that you typically take that seems most incomplete without a cigarette?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, the one I'm really worried about is face to face promo, because in that I wasn't using nicotine just as a drug, I was using it as a prop and as a smokescreen. That's going to be pretty scary. I've got to think of something else to do with my hands and I've got to give myself a smokescreen. Joss sticks, I don't know, a candle. I can't think. I've got to think of something.

[Terry Gross]

Dark glasses?

[Marianne Faithfull]

No, I think people should see my eyes.

[Terry Gross]

So do you feel.

[Marianne Faithfull]

But that's not a bad idea. Dark glasses is a possibility, but you know, I think that's been kind of covered by Yoko, God bless her.

[Terry Gross]

Do you feel like you're speaking or singing voice is changing at all or that you're breathing better when you sing?

[Marianne Faithfull]

Well, I've not yet, no. But I think that will come.

[Terry Gross]

Marianne Faithful, thank you so much for talking with us.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Thanks, Terry. It was. It was a pleasure.

[David Bianculli]

Marianne Faithfull speaking to Terry Gross in 2005. The singer, songwriter and actress died last week. She was 78 years old.

[Marianne Faithfull]

I walk along the street of sorrow, the boulevard of broken dream where gigolo and gigolet can take a kiss without regret. So they forget their broken dream. You laugh tonight and cry tomorrow. When you behold your shadowed skin and jiggle and jigglette wake up to find their eyes are wet with tears that tell a broken dream. Here is where you'll always, always find me. Always walking up and down. But I left my soul behind me in an old cathedral town. The joy that you find here you borrow, you cannot keep it long, it seem. But Jigalong and Jiggalot still sing a song and dance along the boulevard of broken dream. The joy that you've.

[David Bianculli]

Coming up, critic at large John Powers Reviews I'm Still Here, the Brazilian film that's nominated for a Best Picture Oscar this year. This is Fresh air. In the new film I'm Still Here, the Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salas tells the true story of a Rio de Janeiro mother who reinvents herself when Brazil, Brazil's military dictatorship goes after her husband. The movie has been Oscar nominated for both Best Picture and Best International Feature Film. Its star, Fernanda Torres, has been nominated for Best Actress. She already has won the Golden Globe. Our critic at large, John Powers says that I'm Still Here is a moving, inspiring, beautifully made story about learning to confront tyranny.

[E]

It's one measure of Latin America's arduous history that it spawned so many books and movies about dictatorship over the years. I've been through scads of them, from novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, to the landmark documentaries of Patricio Guzman to Hollywood thrillers like Missing and Under Fire. What they share is the awareness that history hurts. Few films have shown this with more delicate intelligence than I'm Still Here, a moving new drama set during Brazil's military dictatorship that began with an American backed coup in 1964 and ended in 1985. Based on a memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, Walter Salas movie is no political tract or manipulative tearjerker, although it may make you cry. Exploring the dictatorship indirectly, I'm Still Here tells the heroic true story of a wife and mother who steers her family through the rapids of tyranny. The story begins idyllically on ipanema beach in 1970, when we first meet the Paiva family. The father is Rubens, played with easy charm by Sultan Melo, a warm hearted man who was a congressman before the couple, and by Eunice. That's Fernanda Torres, a rather traditional seeming wife who bakes great souffles and wrangles their five high energy children. Theirs is a happy upper middle class family whose home is a kind of Eden, complete with a view of the beach buzzing with openness to friends, to ideas, to laughter, to music. The movie's soundtrack is fabulous. Their house is Brazil as we might dream of it being. Yet such openness is precisely what the junta mistrusts. It tortures or disappears anyone it considers a threat to its notion of an orderly anti communist society. Even as the family dances, plays foosball and amiably bickers, we await the dreaded knock on the door. It comes. Rubens is taken away for questioning, security men occupy the house and Eunice herself is called in for a nasty interrogation. Ruben's disappearance is the turning point in Eunice's life. Over the next months, in fact the next decades, she transforms her practical maternal virtues into something mighty. Channeling her grief, she becomes a stronger, tougher, wiser person who protects her kids, digs into the cruel facts of her husband's fate and learns to fight for other people's rights as well. From the start, Eunice is a woman of impressive self command, and the movie shares that virtue. Salas has always been a gifted director, but earlier films like Central Station and the Motorcycle Diaries were so busy being artful and important, they often felt impersonal. Here you feel his profound emotional engagement. Salas grew up in the same milieu as the Paivas. Indeed, he hung out with the kids and you feel his affection for that family and its values. He captures them and 1970 Rio in a way that feels loving and true. Salas does a superb job of depicting how the dictatorship colored daily life. We see how things could often appear normal with fun at the beach and happy visits to the ice cream shop, yet without laying on the violence or heavy handed moralism. Even the secret policemen we meet aren't monsters. Salas also conjures a pervasive atmosphere of anxiety. We feel it in the sounds of helicopters hovering overhead, the TV newscasts filled with lies, the spasms of fearful mistrust that grow between friends and the way that once your family is singled out, you're treated differently out in the world. Like Brazil, their house of freedom is now in lockdown. The counterweight to the dictatorship is the unglamorous strength of Eunice, who goes from making souffles to becoming, at 48, a lawyer who helps make Brazil a better place to live. She's played with surpassing brilliance by Torres, whose performance is so subtle, so internal and so quietly shattering that in a just world, she'd win all this year's big acting awards. Registering each flicker of emotion as precisely as a seismograph, Taurus captures Eunice's pain and horror at her husband's fate, but also her endurance, her faith that life goes on, a faith that time vindicates even as it's buffeted by misfortune. The family survives and thrives. At one point, a newspaper photographer comes to take a picture of the family and tells them to look somber. After all, Rubens is missing. But Eunice insists that everyone smile. She will not let them face the world looking beaten.

[David Bianculli]

John Powers reviewed the new movie I'm Still Here. On Monday's show, Questlove returns. He'll talk about the life and legacy of Sly Stone. His new documentary, Sly Lives, aka the Burden of Black Genius, premieres February 13th on Hulu. Questlove won an Oscar for another of his music documentaries, Summer of Soul. I hope you can join us.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Sometimes I'm right and I can be.

[David Bianculli]

Wrong My own beliefs are in my.

[Marianne Faithfull]

Song the butcher, a baker, a drummer and then makes no difference but who I'm in.

[E]

To.

[David Bianculli]

Keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interview. Follow us on Instagram PRFresh Air Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Brigger is our managing producer. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld and Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavey Nesper. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David B.

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[David Bianculli]

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