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Summary: A great memoir by a powerful woman
Review: Faithfull follows the life of Marianne Faithfull from the mid-60s London rock scene through the 1980's punk scene. She tells her side of her love affairs with Brian Jones, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. Each of them are portrayed with sincerity and honesty. You can feel the love she had for each of them in her descriptions of their times together. Her descent into years of drug addiction takes up most of the book. To hear her description of it it is surprising that she survived. So it is a miracle that she has been able to live to tell the tale so well. There is a wonderful account of her comeback musical career in the 80s. The book is full of the famous sex, drugs and rock n roll of the period. Yet Faithfull doesn't dwell on the details of any of these three. I came away with the image of a strong woman who talks honestly and directly of a life that took a sad turn into drug addiction.
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Summary: rock mythology by rock's own persephone!!!!
Review: I bought this book when I was fifteen (in 1994). I knew nothing about her life or music. I was just visiting a local bookstore with my mother, and I remember being so struck by the cover of the original hardback. An image of ruined beauty, grace, anger, addiction. . .
I devoured this book at once and have reread it many times. I became a huge fan of her music and wit. My next Marianne venture was Broken English. And the rest is history.
I recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of music. I also recommend it to anyone who is a fan of an uncompromising muse, artist, devine whore, brilliant lyricist, accomplished musician, or just of a courageous, true heart. Marianne is all of these with incarnations to spare.
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Summary: A beautiful book by a fascinating woman
Review: I dont quite know what to write. I want to say the right thing because I've always found Marianne Faithfull intriguing and beautiful and I want to do her book justice. It was a wonderful read which is surprising for me because i usually don't read autobiographys but when I saw it was hers I just had to read it.Mariannes story was wonderful,it could have been a novel.I was so pleased to find that it was beautiful and truthful and not at all spiteful or trashy.I have a CD of her music and it is so gorgous. Her voice is world weary but romantic,I think she must be the most romantic woman of all time.I saw her in Hamlet and she was so wonderful in it, everytime I read the play she becomes Ophelia. I know it was a bad time in her life but i loved reading about her romance with Mick Jagger and her description of "swinging London." Although Iam guilty of idealizing her one of the things I like best about her is that she is someone you can relate to and she doesnt try to hide behind a mask. Another thing I really like about her is that she has excellent taste in books. Oscar Wilde is also my favorite author.This is a lovely book and its a shame that its out of print. Faithful is an intriguing,fascinating woman with a wonderful sense of humor.
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Summary: mind candy
Review: I found Marianne's autobiography extremely well written, captivating, and honest. Her sense of humor comes through beautifully. I would recommend it highly to anyone interested in her, the Rolling Stones, or the 60s.
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Summary: Salacious But Entertaining
Review: I read this book upon the recommendation of a friend and was not at all disappointed; rather completely immersed and fascinated. Marianne is an excellent writer who crafts a detailed story rich with description and frank observations. Her account of her acid trips is worth the price of admission alone--- brilliant and teeming with past-life symbolism and classical references. There are many fascinating details throughout, such as her near-death experience while in a coma, in which she meets up with a "dead" Brian Jones stuck between two worlds. Her writing about her plunge into heroin addiction is unapologetic, and in fact, I was thankful that her conclusions upon recovery didn't degenerate into the trite moralizing that would have been the obvious route taken by any other author. (She admits she had a certain romantic attachment to the notion of being a street addict after reading "Naked Lunch.") She also makes no apologies for a certain blue-blooded attitude of her upper-echelon status; rather she is endearing in her honesty and fine opinion of herself and her surroundings, framing it within the context of her middle-class, yet elevated, upbringing This is a book that almost begs to be re-read, because there is so much detail to savor, plus a lot of deep musings and off-the-cuff wit. This book is the polar opposite of the run-of-the-mill, ghost-written celebrity autobiographies. Marianne's voice, depth, wisdom and vast intellect come through loud and clear. I just wish her book were a little longer because I didn't want it to end.
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Summary: Faithfull...The Sixty's All Over
Review: Just finished reading Marianne Faithfull's autobiography which I found at a half-price book store (guess it's out of print). Having spent my teen years in the sixties, I found the book transporting me back to those earlier days when I collected photos from "Sixteen Magazine" and kept a scapbook on the Byrds. While Marianne's life does not come even close to what I experienced in those days, I recall reading a lot of news items on her and how people were fascinated with her entanglement with Mick Jagger. I also lived with the fact that my first romantic interest was enamoured of her and how it made me wish I were blonde, complete with her full lips and chest. However, after reading about her life, I can only feel pity and remorse for such a once-beautiful songstress with the voice of an angel. Little did I know then how tragic her life really was. We were insulated by the media, learning only a fraction of what really happened in her life. Marianne does not attempt to evoke sympathy here; on the contrary, she sounds almost triumphant in recounting her past. She has slain many demons and has not emerged unscathed. I had to read this in smaller increments, because the details left me feeling morose, almost unable to go on to the next chapter. It dredged up dark images of the sixties and those who were enmeshed in the rock n' roll scene. You can't get much closer to how it really was. It's dark, depressing and almost disgusting. But it's a page turner cause you'll keep hoping that she'll learn. Maybe the next chapter, she'll learn! Like all souls she was on her path to enlightnment and found more than a few obstacles. This is a worthwhile read, but don't read it just before sleep.
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Summary: Sex, drugs, rock 'n roll, repeat.
Review: Marianne Faithfull exasperated me. She comes across as a high-profile groupee who has taken drugs and -- oh, you name it --David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, etc, etc, etc. Although she had a brief career as a model and a short stint as a singer (more of a rasper), she really has no talent of her own -- David Dalton had to cull together and edit all this stuff, if not write the whole mess himself. A juicy read if you are interested in homosexual rock stars and tales of drug addiction -- but you may quickly lose patience with all her worshipful name-dropping and spitefull betrayal of her former friends and lovers. Marianne Faithfull needed the money.
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Summary: Sliding through life on charm
Review: She was the quintessential rock girlfriend in the 60s, the young woman envied by everyone -- men wanted her, and women wanted to be her. Now Marianne Faithfull offers her own side of the story of during and after that time, with dry wit and fractured nostalgia. If you ever heard the stories about Marianne, then hear what she has to say. Marianne Faithfull was born the daughter of an idealistic British gentleman and a haughty countess, and schooled in a convent that sheltered her from the outside world. All that went out the window when she came into contact with the blossoming rock'n'roll scene, and was recruited by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Oldham into recording pop song "As Tears Go By." Soon afterwards, Marianne was wooed by rock star Mick Jagger, and left her husband to live with Jagger. At first, it seemed fantastic; Marianne lived in a haze of drugs, music and glamour with Jagger, the doomed Brian Jones, darkly intriguing Keith Richards, and the fascinating Anita Pallenberg. It was a time of rebellion, shifting sexuality, drugs and general strangeness. But criminal trials, addictions and Jagger's dalliances caused cracks in their relationship. After Marianne and Jagger broke up, she descended into heroin addiction, and her son was taken away. But she pulled herself up out of her addiction and released a new kind of music -- music that reflected her past, in all its darkness. Marianne's memoir is refreshingly just and honest -- she gives people like Jagger their due, only speaking badly when it's called for. She not only speaks out on the sexism of the press toward her (and their revolting, idiotic Mars bar story), but also about the hideous consequences it almost had for her mother Eva. Looking back on the fur rug and the handling of Marianne's presence, it's hard to believe that such ghastly mishandling of the facts could take place and actually be believed for so long. When the press turned on the Stones, they also turned on Marianne. And she's the first to admit (many times) that she's made mistakes; if anything, she seems harder on herself than anyone else, recognizing when she should have done better, spoken up, acted differently. (Such as when she blasted Jagger during an emotional moment) What's more, she offers greater insight into Richards, Jagger, Pallenberg, Bob Dylan and others -- not just about them, but the effect they had on people around them. (Richards' Byronic presence, Jones' tormented baby pictures, Pallenberg's hypnotic effect -- all these are amazing insights) And she doesn't pretend that her post-junkie life and romantic relationships were idyllic -- there are low points and high points, stumbles and falls. But it's inspiring to see her releasing new music and overcoming her past problems. The writing is wonderfully vivid, reading almost like a novel at times; Faithfull intersperses her rockspeak with literary and mythologic references (the Lady of Shalott is mentioned multiple times) that give "Faithfull" added sophistication. She also doesn't glorify the drug use that almost killed her; it's pretty horrifying for awhile there despite her initial romantic ideas about it. Faithfull also demonstrates a dry sense of humor that made me chuckle. (Lacking a true finale, she ends the book with cooking tips) A weaker woman than Marianne Faithfull might have been killed by all she's gone through. But her rise again is an inspiring and honest one, and "Faithfull" is a must-read for fans of rock and roll.
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Summary: Life lived to the full
Review: This riveting biography charts Marianne Faithfull's life from her earliest childhood dream to 1994. Along the way, it also serves as a captivating cultural history of swinging London in the 1960s and the music world in subsequent decades. Marianne describes her family background, dispelling many myths along the way, and provides an interesting account of how she entered the music business.
The recollections of touring with the popular bands of the time are interesting, as is the way she entered the Rolling Stones circle. Her first humorous encounter with Bob Dylan and his entourage was so different from a much later meeting in the 1980s when she explained every song on Broken English to an admiring and enquiring Dylan. The glimpses into the interpersonal relations of the Stones are enlightening and poignant, specially the way she describes the decline of the ill-fated Brian Jones.
She talks matter of factly about her relationship with Mick Jagger and the notoriety she gained with various drug busts. Faithfull doesn't spare the reader any of the detail of her long relationship with a breathtaking variety of drugs, but the most interesting parts are when she relates particular events and circumstances to specific compositions by Jagger and by herself.
She discusses all the anarchy and hedonism of the times with a detached air, observing that her generation wanted to see change everywhere, but none of them could quite figure it out and it all ended up as wretched excess. She talks at length about the movie Performance and about her song Sister Morphine. The saddest part is when she spent about 2 years of her life sitting on a wall in Soho, completely spaced out, and she mentions how kindly people treated her.
The making of her country album Faithless, a big hit in Ireland, is described in detail, as well as her big comeback with Broken English in 1979. I really enjoyed her encounters with various musicians, like the tragic Tim Hardin who co-wrote the song Brain Drain on Broken English with Ben Brierly. There's even an interesting snippet about Cristina Monet, wife of Ze Records founder Michael Zilkha. Why'd Ya Do It, one of the most controversial songs on the Broken English album, was written by poet Heathcote Williams. Marianne had to beg him for hours to allow her to record it, as he wanted Tina Turner to do it!
There is no bitterness in any of Faithfull's writing, but lots of humour and witty observations. She is full of praise for musicians like Barry Reynolds and Van Morrison with whom she has worked. As a great fan of hers and The Stones, I am truly relieved that there were no life threatening sexually transmitted diseases in the 1960s and 1970s because then a whole generation of musicians would have been lost, what with all the intercourse between everybody so vividly recalled by Marianne.
This book confirms why Faithfull is a true survivor and has developed into an original artist with growing stature. The text is thoroughly engaging and the scandal is well balanced by observations on the songs, the times, the making of the albums and the films. There are 45 black and white photographs and a thorough index. I highly recommend Faithfull to all her fans, students of the 1960s counterculture and those who enjoy good rock biography. Other great books of the genre include Nico, The Last Bohemian (Songs They Never Play On The Radio) by James Young and Scars Of Sweet Paradise (Janis Joplin) by Alice Echols.
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