Traces of Marianne Faithfull

I had the good fortune to do a paid summer internship in London right after the first Gulf War, and to keep to my limited but sufficient budget, boarded with an extended family of eccentric, urbane and wonderfuly complicated people. It took a while to connect the dots, but I soon discovered that the Adams family was intermixed with the Dunbar family, and that John Dunbar had been married to Marianne Faithfull, had a son Nick with her, and also evidently introduced John Lennon to Yoko Ono in the 1960s. I dared not show it, but I was excited as hell to be dwelling among the glitterati, especially as a mere library intern. While I was there, John Dunbar fought with John Adams (his brother-in-law) over everything, especially art and money. Dunbar seemed a bit touched, and looked the part of semi-burntout artist, complete with hideous pony tail and a large garish earring. His favorite statement about politicians, repeated several times: "He's a bit barmy, barmy on the crumpet ain't he?" Later, I stayed at the large Dunbar, Sr., flat in central London, because Lev Adams, John A.'s son, had suffered a serious spell, some mental breakdown of a very large order, and needed his room back.

Marianne Faithfull has hovered around my life in weird ways -- I was listening to her notoriously great Broken English album (1979) while driving on an icy backroad in North Carolina one January years before going to London, when my car hit a swathe of black ice, spun out of control, hit an embankment, flipped over and spun around one more time, leaving me suspended by my seatbelt. Marianne Faithfull kept singing. I unsnapped the belt and crawled out on the road, checked myself out and discovered that I was completely unscathed -- not even a bruise. I reached in and flipped the off button to my casette player, and other drivers soon came to my rescue. Given that I could just as easily have died or been mangled, I always connect Marianne Faithfull with surviving the incident.

Marianne left John Dunbar for Mick Jagger, and together they had one wildly intense ride. Though they eventually broke up, she inspired many excellent songs, maybe most of the Sticky Fingers album (1971), in fact -- not least being "Wild Horses," "Sister Morphine," and "Moonlight Mile."

Since then, she has been a darling of many people, and has continued to perform over the years. When she sang her early hit single, "As Tears Go By," she had an almost girl voice; hence, it might come as quite a shock to hear her singing on Broken English and later albums -- it's harsh, gin-soaked (as "they" say), ravaged, but full of soulful emotion, the voice of one who survived, but with a lot of deep wounds.

I'm sure I'll write more about this and London at some point, but am preparing to head for the Philadelphia area tomorrow and still have to pull everything together!


On the fly, adieu!