Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Marianne Faithfull0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is a singer and an actress. She remains in the public mind, however, not for what she is, but for what she represents, the age of the sixties and sex, drugs, and rock and roll. The daughter of an Austrian baroness and an English army officer, she went to a convent school, but her waif-like beauty made her a natural attraction for the hedonistic pop culture, and she embarked on a life of promiscuity and drug addiction. She survived two suicide attempts and three marriages, and now she lives alone in Ireland, where she says, People accept me as I am. She is Marianne Faithful. I don't mean to imply that you've turned into some kind of nun, Marianne, but I mean it it does sound as if you live in a kind of retreat.

Marianne Faithfull1:10

I think

Presenter1:14

It is like that. It's got a big wall round it, what they call in Ireland a famine wall, because they were built in the famine. They were built to give people work. And they are the great walls that surround the 18th century estates, the great Anglo-Irish estates. I live on one of the last of these. So this is a cottage on an estate? Yes, I i mine is the

Marianne Faithfull1:35

On an estate.

Presenter1:38

is a folly, actually. The original bit is an eighteenth century shell grotto cottage, where obviously they would go and

Presenter1:47

have picnics and drinks and tea and all sorts of things probably went on there. But you're surrounded the whole thing is by the city. It's a thousand acres. It's surrounded by a wall. And at eight o'clock the gates are locked. You're shut in.

Marianne Faithfull1:51

But you

Marianne Faithfull1:53

Fingers by the sinkat.

Presenter2:00

Not really. I have a key, of course. My best friends all have keys. Why do you say that this phrase people accept me as I am? I don't know what it is about the Irish that

Presenter2:12

I don't feel I have to put on an act, I think. That might be what it is. They like me.

Marianne Faithfull2:17

I like

Presenter2:18

I always like people who like me. Surprise, surprise. And what's more, you're a granny now. You're granny faithful. I certainly am, yes. I'm going to see Oscar tonight. How old is he? He's nearly two.

Presenter2:31

So you live alone, as you say. Are are you lonely? No. I work hard and it involves a lot of talking to people and a lot of meeting people and

Marianne Faithfull2:34

No.

Presenter2:40

A lot of being out.

Presenter2:42

So for me coming home to Shell Cottage and to Ireland is is a wonderful relief. But you've said in in one interview, anyway, that you've you think you've driven away all prospective partners and husbands. No, I I don't mean that.

Marianne Faithfull2:53

Yeah.

Presenter2:56

But if if a prospective partner or husband came along, you you wouldn't be willing to be easy for them. I've made myself about as unavailable as you can be. But it's not impossible, she said, hopefully.

Marianne Faithfull2:59

Well, it would be willing

Speaker 42:59

Uh

Marianne Faithfull2:59

Easy for

Presenter3:07

If somebody really wanted to get through, they could. The gate would open and the key would come out.

Marianne Faithfull3:10

The cake

Presenter3:14

It's a real sleeping beauty thing. Tell me about your first record.

Marianne Faithfull3:14

Can you tell me?

Marianne Faithfull3:16

Down

Presenter3:19

Well, I chose it because when people hear it they will know where they are.

Presenter3:25

They're in the sixties.

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I knew Jimmy. He was a wonderful man.

Presenter3:30

I really wanted to have

Presenter3:32

A Ho by Jimi Hendricks, on my desert island, so I could think about him.

Speaker 43:43

I heard you shot your woman down, you shot

Speaker 43:51

Hey, Joy.

Speaker 43:54

I heard you shut your letter down. Shut her down

Presenter3:58

Jimi Hendrix and Hey Joe. Jimi Hendricks, who whom you knew Marianne Faithful, but he never seduced you, you never seduced him. I tried, and I wish I'd gone. It's my g one of my only regrets in my life. What about Bob Dylan? I thought you resisted him. Oh I did, yes, yes.

Marianne Faithfull4:13

Oh, I did, y

Presenter4:15

I don't quite regret that as much as I regret not being seduced by Jimi Hendrix.

Presenter4:21

Jean Pitney, you were seduced by, had an affair with, and and plenty of others, including three of the Rolling Stones. Um does it all seem crazy now when you look back across the way? Or do you know even now how you fell into it all?

Presenter4:37

Well, I fell into it all because I was incredibly beautiful, I think. Did you know you were incredibly beautiful? Not really, not like that. No, it's only with long distance and sort of perspective. Now, when I look at pictures of how I look, now I can understand it. It isn't unusual. I've seen

Presenter4:54

Very, very pretty girls that obviously didn't know how pretty they were yet. It's something about being very young, I think. But it was also, in your case, to do with

Presenter5:03

looking like you were supposed to look then. I mean, as it happened, you know, long legs, blonde hair, blue eyes, pouty lips. It was exactly how the face of the sixties was supposed to be and you had it. It was the dream.

Marianne Faithfull5:05

I mean I

Presenter5:17

I'm glad. I mean, I di it got me into a lot of trouble. I wouldn't exchange a lot of it if I could. I really wouldn't. The only bit I would leave out if I could, of course I can't, is the drugs.

Presenter5:30

Because you're often represented in all of it as a as as a victim. Oh, no. You weren't, were you?

Presenter5:36

No. People are often trying to do that, sort of to try and get me off my own hook.

Presenter5:42

But I prefer, if I have to be on the hook, I'll be on it. You know, I'd rather take responsibility for it than not. Tell me about the record, though, As Tears Go By, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richardson. How did that come about? How did you I mean did you know you could sing? Oh, yes, I had a most beautiful soprano voice. I was having singing lessons, I was going to go.

Presenter6:02

to the Royal Academy of Music. I was going to be an opera singer. But how did you come to record that number in that way? I was er discovered.

Presenter6:11

or seen.

Presenter6:13

at a party by Andrew Oldham, who was the manager of the Rolling Stones.

Presenter6:18

And um it was literally I walked into the room and everybody stopped talking.

Presenter6:24

And I was discovered. So it was simply a matter of finding the right song for you to sing, to record. Yeah. I recorded it, it came out, nothing happened. And I remember feeling sort of intense relief, because I had a vague idea that if this was a hit, all hell would break loose. This all went on in my summer holidays.

Marianne Faithfull6:26

So

Marianne Faithfull6:29

Yeah.

Presenter6:42

So I was just by I was just thinking I'd got away with it and I would go back to school in September and get on with my A levels. And then in October it took off, and that was that.

Presenter6:53

Tell me about your next record.

Presenter6:56

I remember when I was little, growing up, there was a couple of Brechtweil songs on Seventy Eight. I like to think they were my mother's. I think they might have been. I think they might have been a German label.

Presenter7:08

And I put this in because of my parents. It's a Kurt Weil song. It's Berlin im Licht.

Speaker 37:15

Und som spat sieren gein, ge nügt dasunden licht, daf gung di stat berlin susing.

Speaker 47:21

Belly to sing

Speaker 37:25

That is a Lausche Lens.

Speaker 37:29

That is necessary.

Presenter7:42

Courtwall's Berlin im Licht, performed by H. K. Gruber and the Ensemble Moderne. You're into Courtwall these days, aren't you? Yes, very much so. It's been something I've been.

Speaker 37:49

Don't

Presenter7:52

Working on for a long time now. I the first time I recorded a Kurt Valley song was for Hal Wilner on a an compilation, uh a tribute to Kurt Vowel called Lost in the Stars, and I did the Ballad of the Soldier's Wife.

Presenter8:07

And I immediately then as I was doing it, I felt like I'd come home, that this was the music I really wanted to do. Now you were characterized as the little middle class innocent, but but your background

Marianne Faithfull8:19

Roll that war

Presenter8:20

Well, it was more unusual than that, your background. Well, I had a s I do have an interesting background, but still I was a little

Marianne Faithfull8:23

Well I had a s

Presenter8:28

Nice little middle class English girl, I really want. Oh yes, but not all nice little middle class English girls have fathers who are related to sexologists. No, intent on curing related to masochists. Well, exactly. They were an odd couple, your parents. They were.

Marianne Faithfull8:31

What?

Marianne Faithfull8:37

Intended curing related to

Marianne Faithfull8:40

Well exactly.

Marianne Faithfull8:43

Because

Presenter8:44

They were.

Presenter8:45

But I do think that I wouldn't be me if I hadn't had those parents. And I'm very glad that I am like I am. And the name, of course, is real, isn't it? People always say, you know, when did she change her name? It's a beautiful name. Well, I'm very grateful to my dad for being Glynn Faithful. And mum was an Austrian baroness. Yes, she was a dancer. She was a dancer.

Marianne Faithfull8:55

Tell me

Marianne Faithfull8:58

I know.

Marianne Faithfull9:07

Yes, she was a

Presenter9:12

In Berlin, before the war, that's one of the reasons I chose Berlin imm Licht.

Presenter9:17

Um her name was Eva Sakamazo.

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And

Presenter9:22

Her great uncle, my great-great-uncle, was Leopold Sachamazoch.

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who gave his name to masochism.

Presenter9:31

and who wrote the famous book

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Venus impelts, which is Venus infers.

Presenter9:38

That presaged something, didn't it? Well, I I don't know. It it's an awfully silly book.

Presenter9:44

is not half as fascinating as the Marquis de Sard.

Presenter9:48

Now, your mother, as I say, was a baroness who expected to be treated like a lady. Did she bring you up to be? Mhm. Expected to be treated like a princess? Mhm. She did. And actually I don't think it was such a bad thing.

Speaker 49:59

Yeah.

Presenter10:00

I now know if I have to.

Presenter10:02

I really can give somebody such a killer look they nearly shrivel up.

Presenter10:07

And I learnt that from Ava.

Presenter10:09

But in the end you wanted to escape from her. You wanted to leave Reading and go off to this scene in London that we've talked about. Do you think that that that was a grander ambition than any other teenager in the sixties would have had? Or is yours honesty?

Marianne Faithfull10:15

And

Marianne Faithfull10:20

Yeah.

Presenter10:23

my own generation. I wanted to be in on it.

Presenter10:27

But you escaped, as you've said, since, to to a kind of nightmare. That's what it turned out to be in the end, isn't it? That's because of drugs. Uh if it hadn't been for drugs it wouldn't have been such a nightmare.

Presenter10:37

That's all it was, I think.

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Record number three.

Presenter10:42

Well, when I was twelve or thirteen,

Presenter10:46

I remember going with my mother.

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in Reading to see Gigi.

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and it made a very deep impression on me.

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But for years it was almost like a sort of

Presenter10:58

Like I thought that's exactly how life was going to be and what my life in particular would be like and I used it as a sort of life role model.

Presenter11:06

And that's why I chose The Night They Invented Champagne, because I still believe in all that.

Speaker 411:11

The night they invented champagne It's plain as it can be They thought of you and me The night they invented champagne They absolutely knew That all we had to do Was fly to the sky on champagne And shout to everyone in sight That since the world began No woman or a man Has ever been as happy as we are

Presenter11:42

Right.

Presenter11:44

The Night They Invented Champagne from Lerner and Lowe's musical Gigi, with Amanda Waring as Gigi and Geoffrey Burridge as Gaston.

Presenter11:52

Do you recall the first time you met Mick Jagger?

Presenter11:56

Oh yes. I it was at the party where I was discovered by Andrew Olden, which was a a a launching party of a record that Andrew had produced for a girl called Andrea

Presenter12:10

And, um, I guess all the stones were there. I don't remember them all.

Presenter12:15

But I do remember seeing Mick having a row with Chrissie Shroopton.

Presenter12:19

But you've said since that the first time you you um really gave him any thought you you decided he was a cheeky little yob.

Presenter12:25

He wasn't my type.

Presenter12:27

Wasn't he? How did he come to be your type then?

Presenter12:31

With time. And I've m I have obviously fell in love with him. Keith Richards was more your type, Kate? I don't know. I I like very sort of serious, clever

Presenter12:41

Keith Richards probably was my type, yes. You're right, I have to admit. Was Mick Jagger clever? Is Mick Jagger? He was terribly clever. Of course, I mean.

Marianne Faithfull12:46

Pick jaggery.

Marianne Faithfull12:47

Isn't it?

Presenter12:50

It will make make her somebody.

Presenter12:52

With time as you got to know him as I got to know him,

Presenter12:56

I found out he wasn't at all what he seemed.

Presenter12:59

Much more interesting.

Presenter13:01

You you you said also before now that he he certainly wasn't what he seems. He was apparently very fastidious. He didn't like the bohemian life. No. I've never understood how how how this happened, that people thought you were so sort of dirty and slobby and further from the truth you couldn't get. But he fell in love with you first, didn't he? I mean, that was that was why the affair began.

Presenter13:22

I think I'm a bit like that, you know. If somebody doesn't fall in love with me and make me notice that, I wouldn't notice.

Marianne Faithfull13:29

It will be

Presenter13:32

You've also said since that he he was quite mean. You were No, he's not really mean. He was one of the most generous people I've ever known in my life. I think he likes to to be known as mean.

Presenter13:43

I think that a lot of rich people do, but he's not really mean. It was you who was extravagant, maybe that's what it was. Well, I was beyond, yes, I was very extravagant. This could irritate anybody.

Presenter13:54

Yeah, I think it's a very good idea.

Marianne Faithfull13:54

You enjoyed

Presenter13:56

And I was very good at it, too. And he enjoyed me spending his money. He saved your life once, of course, didn't he? He got you to the hospital in town when you'd OD'd.

Speaker 414:02

Beat it.

Presenter14:05

Well, if he hadn't been there, yeah, I wouldn't have made it.

Presenter14:09

But you've also implied that he was possibly bisexual.

Presenter14:13

That that somehow you and Anita Pallenberg, who who was Brian Jones' girlfriend, that you were

Speaker 414:14

That so

Marianne Faithfull14:14

Uh

Presenter14:19

Kind of used by the stones in order to kind of relate with each other. I don't know.

Presenter14:25

I was bisexual. I am assuming really that this this crosses over into other people. I would say there's definitely a bisexual current in Mick Jagger. I have no clue whether it's ever been acted on or not. I'm not saying it as a this guy is a bisexual faggot.

Presenter14:44

You don't think it was just a case of of kind of liberated youth just trying out everything on offer? I mean, as you said, you tried out. It certainly was in my case. I mean, I found out in the end that I really wasn't bisexual and I made a decision.

Marianne Faithfull14:44

Uh You know what I mean?

Marianne Faithfull14:48

This trap

Marianne Faithfull14:50

Yeah.

Speaker 414:50

Two.

Marianne Faithfull14:50

Yeah.

Presenter14:58

But I think probably that was the same with me. We were so young, so rich, so beautiful, we could do anything.

Speaker 414:58

But

Presenter15:04

And you wanted to break the rules, yes? Certainly, oh, yes, very much so.

Marianne Faithfull15:05

But to break the rules, yeah.

Presenter15:10

Next record. Ah, yes. One of my greatest all-time favourites. I couldn't live without it.

Presenter15:17

Bobdalen Highway sixty one revisited.

Speaker 415:21

God said to Abraham, kill me a son. Abe said man, you must be putting me on. God said no, Abe said what? God said you can do what you want, Abe, but the next time you see me coming, you better run.

Speaker 415:43

Well Apes and where you want this killing done God's head around highway 61

Presenter15:52

Bob Dylan and Highway sixty one revisited. The the day, Marianne Faithful, your reputation w was was made, or I suppose more accurately destroyed. Destroyed, ruined, w was in february nineteen sixty seven. There was a drugs raid on Keith Richards' country house. You were dressed in nothing but a fur rug.

Speaker 416:02

Great.

Presenter16:11

And Mick and Keith ended up spending time in jail. Now, you believe that that was a set-up, don't you? It was the work of MI5, you think?

Marianne Faithfull16:17

It was the work of

Presenter16:19

There are two actual examples of this in the sixties. One is the drug bust at Redlands, Keith Richards Country House, and the other one is the Oz trial. I would love to see the the details of this. There must be records of all these things. It all came out in America. If they were doing it in the States, they were doing it here. But why do you believe they wanted to do it? It's a way of discrediting. I think that the authorities took much more seriously than we knew the whole youth culture and what we stood for to young people. And I think they were determined.

Marianne Faithfull16:45

The authorities

Presenter16:58

To maintain the status quo and not let this happen. And this drug bust was an attempt at that. So the drugs were planted? No, they didn't have to plant the drugs. What happened was that this man turned up from America with all this stuff. It was so simple. I mean, you didn't have to plant anything. We were, oh, good. Let's all go to Redlands and take this stuff and see how it is. And off we went.

Marianne Faithfull17:06

No, they didn't.

Presenter17:24

Um Robert and Christopher and Mick and Keith and me and Michael Cooper.

Presenter17:31

and Mohammed, who was Christopher's Moroccan servant. So you were the only woman?

Presenter17:38

And we went out and

Presenter17:40

In a van to go and visit wonderful things, and everywhere we went was closed.

Presenter17:47

In the end, we went to the beach and we had a wonderful time, sort of running around the beach like children. It was a very

Presenter17:54

There was something very young about it, really. It was an escapade. It was. And never thinking that all this dark stuff was coming down us, we got back to Redlands,

Marianne Faithfull17:57

Yeah.

Presenter18:05

Very tired and dirty and covered in twigs and moss and bits of sand and shells and pebbles and all sorts of things. And so I went and had a bath and I hadn't brought everyone else was changing into ever more fabulous costumes because that's part of that was what it was like those times. And I had forgotten to bring a costume. But on the bed was a huge, vast fur rug. It really could have, as Keith said in the trial, it could have covered ten women.

Presenter18:34

And I picked this up and put it on and it looked wonderful, of course. I really did look like Venus in furs in that.

Presenter18:41

I went downstairs and we were just chilling out, as they say, and at this point twenty four West Wittering Constabulary walked in.

Presenter18:51

The stories that that followed after that of course were very lurid and explicit, some true, some presumably not so true.

Marianne Faithfull18:55

and explicit

Presenter18:59

Well, you're alluding to the Mars Bar story, which is not true.

Presenter19:04

Which I I

Presenter19:07

Don't know how to put it.

Presenter19:09

Yes, it's it's always upset me and angered me this.

Presenter19:15

So it still worries you now, does it?

Marianne Faithfull19:17

I'm ready to

Presenter19:18

Gotten over it a bit. That story really took away my good name as a woman. It's my feminine self that was hurt by that.

Presenter19:28

Um and that's what angered me about it, that

Presenter19:32

Mick and Keith came out of this even more glamorous and wonderful and sort of outlawed.

Presenter19:40

I was destroyed by it. I had not understood the power of the authorities at all. Now I know.

Presenter19:49

Next record.

Presenter19:52

I really wanted to give you

Presenter19:54

A picture of what it was like and this really is a picture of our life and how it felt. Shell Cottage is so isolated, it's very like my desert island. I can sit there at four in the morning and play Dear Mr. Fantasy as loud as possible and I have great speakers and it's wonderful.

Speaker 420:18

Thank you.

Speaker 420:21

Don't play to make a s

Speaker 420:36

Yeah.

Presenter20:43

Dear Mr. Fantasy from Traffic, you and Mick Marianne stayed together for a couple of years after that. Your attitude from'67 on seems to have been that you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, doesn't it? I started getting these horrible letters that I was still only 19, I think, or 20, after the bust at Redlands, that I took very much to heart. I am like that. I still take things to heart. But it's a bad review. I really take it to heart. Those letters also came because, in fact, you were married and you did have a young baby, didn't you?

Marianne Faithfull21:10

I get it.

Marianne Faithfull21:12

Great.

Presenter21:17

I think didn't people react to you saying you were a bad mother because you seem to be promiscuous because you're into drugs and so on? I was promiscuous. I don't think that makes you a bad mother though.

Marianne Faithfull21:23

Nonsense promiscu.

Presenter21:27

But isn't that what the hate mail said?

Presenter21:31

No, it was much more poetic than that. No, it was it was pure evil. It was you are evil. I don't know if there was any real tangible reason. I don't think it was just coming out of

Presenter21:44

That I was an allegedly bad mother, that I was the mistress of one of the Rolling Stones. It was just.

Presenter21:51

Um, you are a bad person, and the sooner you're dead, the better.

Presenter21:56

And in the end, of course, you lost custody of your son, didn't you? Yes, well that was all connected with leaving Mick. While I was with Mick, I was under I had protection. The minute I walked out of that protection I I was completely vulnerable.

Presenter22:12

And you walked out of there on to the streets, really, didn't you? No, I walked out of there with Nicholas and Tassie.

Marianne Faithfull22:14

No.

Presenter22:18

and a Persian carpet.

Presenter22:20

To my mother's. Who was Tassie?

Presenter22:22

Tassie was Nicholas's dog.

Presenter22:25

My first husband's family and my first husband, John, obviously did what they believed to be the right thing, and I accept that. Taking custody of the customers. They didn't do this because they thought I was a bad person. They weren't like that.

Marianne Faithfull22:35

What taking customer nicknames?

Presenter22:41

But anyway, these things are sort of technical questions now because it's all a long time ago. And and th these are they're good people, you know. They did what they believed to be the best thing. I think they were wrong.

Presenter22:54

I think they were wrong for me and Nicholas.

Presenter22:57

Was that why in the end you ended up on the streets in Soho?

Marianne Faithfull23:01

I lost.

Presenter23:03

There didn't seem to be much point in anything.

Presenter23:07

Once that was done. But how did you survive out there? I mean, was it not very dangerous? Yes, it must have been very dangerous, but

Marianne Faithfull23:12

Yes

Presenter23:15

And I I wouldn't recommend it. But did nobody come to find you? Did nobody care about you? No, no, no. I didn't want anybody to come and find me. Occasionally people would show up. Uh Brian Geison, the painter, would come and find me occasionally. Kenneth Anger would come and find me occasionally.

Marianne Faithfull23:19

Did nobody care about

Presenter23:34

and and feed me and let me go. But there it took a particular kind of respect for me to be able

Presenter23:42

to let me be, and I needed that.

Presenter23:47

Um I didn't do this to get attention or to have people come and find me. I literally didn't want anyone to know where I was. I wanted to be left alone.

Presenter23:57

I believe there's something that looks after fools like me in that situation, really.

Presenter24:04

Hi.

Presenter24:05

Of course it was different then. It is not it's even a million times more dangerous now.

Presenter24:11

I was very lucky, and the people were very kind to me, you know, and that deeply impressed me, because they didn't know me, they didn't know my name, they didn't know anything about me.

Presenter24:21

But I found out in that two years that

Presenter24:26

I found out about the basic goodness of human beings and I really stand by that.

Presenter24:33

When they've got nothing, they will give give the little bit they have to another human being. I think that's amazing.

Presenter24:40

Next record

Presenter24:43

Huh, give me shelter.

Presenter24:45

By the Rolling Stones.

Speaker 424:51

Now those three

Speaker 424:55

Further as I went

Speaker 424:57

Don't hell it.

Speaker 424:59

Everyone belongs to us

Speaker 425:03

Walk to you, it's to be shallow, it's to the shallow way, woah.

Speaker 425:15

The shadow work!

Presenter25:19

Give me shelter by the Rolling Stones. Do you ever see them these days?

Presenter25:23

Not very often, but um they were recording Voodoo Lounge in Dublin about two years ago now, I think.

Presenter25:31

And um I w I was invited down to the studio and I went down and

Presenter25:35

Saw everybody. It was great. Must have been very strange. I mean, you have all that history with them. Where do you go? I think I must see them all.

Marianne Faithfull25:42

Where do you get used?

Presenter25:47

all together, like once every ten years, literally every decade. And I walk in and I there's Charlie and there's Keith and

Presenter25:57

And it's just like nothing has ever it's no big deal. But do you think they have any sense of guilt about you? Because at the end of the day your suffering was much greater than theirs. I don't know about that.

Marianne Faithfull26:04

End of the day

Marianne Faithfull26:07

Yeah.

Presenter26:09

I don't know. Yes, but that doesn't mean anything. Obviously, to be the Rolling Stones, to be the greatest rock and roll band in the world, you have to be very, very tough.

Marianne Faithfull26:09

Well pop

Marianne Faithfull26:11

Oh yeah.

Presenter26:19

And I rather admire that, really. And you have to use people up and spit them out. I don't know. I I first of all, I don't wish to be seen as a victim. I don't wish anybody to feel guilt about me, thank you. I will feel my own guilt. And that you know, I don't want that. I was very fond of Keith. I'm very fond of Ronnie. I adore Charlie.

Marianne Faithfull26:37

It was very fine.

Presenter26:42

Um the only one I have a bit of a problem with, and it's obvious when we do meet, which is so rarely, is Mick. Yes, there's a lot of blood under the bridge there, and it's awkward and difficult. But Jerry's always very nice and helps a lot.

Presenter26:57

It was a good twenty years before you finally kicked the drugs, though, wasn't it?

Presenter27:02

I wasn't on drugs for the next twenty years. I finally came off drugs properly, finally, um nineteen eighty five.

Presenter27:15

And I didn't go back on after that.

Presenter27:17

But I would I would have long periods off, and then I would

Presenter27:21

Use again. If I hadn't had long periods off, I wouldn't even be here now.

Presenter27:26

And of course eventually as as uh it eventually comes to the point where you they call it between a rock and a hard place, where you have to

Presenter27:35

Get off or die. But your success with Broken English, your record broken English, really did something for you. It did a lot for me.

Marianne Faithfull27:35

Get off or die.

Presenter27:43

And I didn't even expect that. I never expect these great bonuses life throws me. I'm amazed when they happen. The book has done the same thing. It's sort of

Presenter27:53

given me pride in myself, a a a faith in myself again, which I didn't ha I I needed it.

Presenter27:59

There's still days of low self-esteem. These things are never over. Anyone who's ever been addicted to to hard drugs, you never.

Presenter28:08

You can never feel safe again.

Presenter28:10

Record number seven.

Presenter28:12

Oh, this one.

Presenter28:13

I thought about it a lot. I wanted to to play for you a a something that really represented the seventies for me. And there was a lot of things I loved in the seventies. I I I I did like punk.

Presenter28:27

But in the end I've realized that the the bit of the seventies I really hold with me and meant more to me than anything has been Jamaican music.

Presenter28:37

and reggae. It's a great spiritual charge, this music.

Presenter28:42

And um so from that bit of my life I wanted to play Small Axe Bob Marney.

Speaker 428:50

Why both end I said?

Speaker 428:54

Oh, he room man

Speaker 429:01

Play it smart, and do not be it clever.

Speaker 429:08

I said you brought in iniquity.

Speaker 429:13

To achieve vanity

Presenter29:18

Small Axe by Bob Marley and The Wailers. Um so these days, Mary Ann Faithful, you you've obviously got a a hold on yourself. You've quite a controlled life actually. Well I think it's because I work quite hard. I find that if I'm doing a lot

Marianne Faithfull29:28

Yeah.

Presenter29:33

I really do have to go to bed early. I really do have to take care of myself. Because I want to look as nice as possible. It's probably vanity, really.

Presenter29:41

Well, why not? And you're still not fifty. What do you want from life?

Marianne Faithfull29:42

I'm not

Presenter29:46

What what would you like to have?

Marianne Faithfull29:48

Mm-hmm.

Presenter29:49

I want more. Now that got you into trouble, Los. Well, I haven't really changed. I want something else.

Presenter29:56

I am writing another book.

Presenter29:59

And I really like doing that. I enjoy it very much. And you're you're very close to your father these days. Yes. Because you obviously you weren't in your early life. He he paid you a great compliment, I I read. He said

Presenter30:11

He's delighted now that you're such a nice woman.

Marianne Faithfull30:14

Good.

Presenter30:15

He wrote me a letter. I had it framed.

Presenter30:19

It's a wonderful letter. I mean, my my father was always there. It was me that was running.

Presenter30:25

You know, and I was running from everybody who loved me, from my mother, my father, my family, everybody, my son, everybody.

Presenter30:34

as far as I could get.

Presenter30:36

It was true Brechtian alienation, I'm afraid.

Presenter30:41

So these days you've got a family. I mean, you you know, your son, uh Carol, my daughter in law, your grandson, all of a sudden Marianne Faithful is part of a family.

Marianne Faithfull30:44

Yeah.

Marianne Faithfull30:46

Oh she's great.

Marianne Faithfull30:48

All of a sudden

Presenter30:51

I'm part of the whole thing. That's what I never used to feel. I am part of my family, but I'm just, I feel like I'm part of.

Presenter30:58

of of the human race. And if we take you away from all of it and we put you in the middle of the desert island, you'll be absolutely fine because you're one of life's great survivors. I think I will actually, yes. I think I I wouldn't mind it, as long as it didn't go on too long.

Marianne Faithfull31:10

Yeah.

Presenter31:15

Tell me about record number eight.

Presenter31:18

It's something again I play very loud.

Presenter31:21

After midnight at the Shell Cottage.

Presenter31:23

It's Orfeo, Monte Verdi. It's the story of of the god of music, Orpheus, and and his great love, Eurydice, and he has to go down to hell.

Presenter31:35

to get her.

Presenter31:36

And the King of the Underworld says, You can have her back, and no one has ever, ever escaped the underworld, ever. But you mustn't look back to see if she's coming with you.

Presenter31:47

And he does, and as he looks back to see her, she loses her.

Presenter31:52

And to me, this whole story is everything. That's what I've been through.

Presenter31:58

Been there. I know that one. I thought my dad would like this. I want to play this for my dad.

Speaker 432:31

And silence.

Presenter32:47

Ahicaso acherbo from Monteverde's Orfeo, performed by the Monteverde Choir, conducted by John Elliott Gardner. Now if you could only take one of those eight records, Marianne.

Presenter32:58

It's very hard.

Presenter33:02

I think

Presenter33:04

As I'm going to a desert island, I will take the Bob Marley. Small axe. Yeah. It'll be useful.

Presenter33:11

What about a book?

Presenter33:13

I thought about it a lot. I decided I would take Robinson Crusoe.

Presenter33:17

For inspiration. For inspiration, for tips, for philosophical well being. It's all in there. It's a wonderful book. I've always loved it. And'cause there's a Man Friday. Ah, yeah. Well, I was guess. The I mean, the first thing is

Marianne Faithfull33:27

Ah yeah.

Presenter33:31

That I will find is a Man Friday

Presenter33:34

I hope. There's not one there, I promise. What about your luxury?

Presenter33:38

I want to take pen and paper.

Presenter33:41

to write. But

Presenter33:43

Pen has to be there's a special pen you can get at Aspris, which is a pen, but it has a magnifying glass on the end.

Presenter33:51

Can I have that?

Marianne Faithfull33:53

Yes.

Presenter33:54

Well, I suppose so. I mean, if you define it. And lots of paper. What are you going to write?

Presenter33:59

I'm going to write what it's like to be on a desert island.

Presenter34:03

with Bob Marley record.

Presenter34:06

We look forward to reading it. Marianne Faithful, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Marianne Faithfull34:19

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.