"I know a lot about sin," says Marianne Faithfull

"I know a lot about sin," says Marianne Faithfull

"Grande dame" of British pop talks Seven Deadly Sins and reissue of classic Broken English album. "I got that feeling that people really wanted me to kill myself," she tells MOJO's Paul Trynka.



"I know a lot about sin," says Marianne Faithfull; she has indeed packed several lifetimes' worth of escapades into her celebrated, perhaps notorious, career. Yet, according to almost anyone who encountered her in the '60s, there was something of the angel about the young Marianne Faithfull, too. In the bosom of the Rolling Stones, perhaps some of the most selfish people on the planet, she remained an exemplar of empathy and sensitivity – which partly explains her compulsion, throughout the late '60s and '70s, to blot out the cruelty of the outside world in a blizzard of drugs. Yet there's a steely core to the so-called English rose, whose redoubtable mother escaped from war-torn Vienna and via whom Marianne has inherited – but chooses not to use – the title of Baroness Sacher-Masoch.
Given her Austro-Hungarian pedigree, it shouldn't be surprising to see Faithfull headline a significant production of Brecht and Weill's Seven Deadly Sins, which recently enjoyed an acclaimed four-month run at the Landestheater in Linz, Austria. Yet, a surprise it is, for the production is a cornucopia of pleasures, from her own world-weary singing and imperious presence, to the inventiveness of Weill's music and the Weimar cynicism of the newly-reimagined choreography. The spectacle of the one-act opera, along with the re-release of her landmark 1979 solo album, Broken English, in an original mix shorn of its then-fashionable synth overdubs, show Faithfull has learned to use her troubled history, rather than be imprisoned by it.
The opening of Seven Deadly Sins inspired an unkind story from the Daily Mail, who contrasted the Linz opera with the Stones' multi-million-grossing shows in London and New York. Yet, for MOJO's money, Faithfull's is the more fascinating performance, striking out for new territory rather than simply revisiting past glories. "I understand this all now," she tells your correspondent. "When I recorded The Seven Deadly Sins [in 1998] it was pretty good, but I think I'm at my height. Or, I think I'm getting better."
You've been exploring the work of Brecht and Weill since 1985, when you did Hal Willner's Lost In The Stars album. When did you first hear The Seven Deadly Sins?
The first time I heard The Seven Deadly Sins, it was Hal playing it for me. And immediately I said to myself, This is what I have to do for my life work. Really! And I have!
You have a connection with Brecht that goes back to Weimar Berlin, via your mum and your uncle?
My mother was a dancer in the corps de ballet with the Max Reinhardt company. She was having a great time, she'd come to Berlin at 17 and studied dance. She was very beautiful and probably would have had a great career without Hitler. [My uncle] Alex was a young writer living in a beautiful Bauhaus apartment. I just did this [BBC television] programme called Who Do You Think You Are?, it's coming out in the spring. I learned so much, it was extraordinary.
The subjects always cry when they find out what happened to their forebears in that show. Did you?
I know that's meant to be the money shot – but I didn't cry, no.
Seven Deadly Sins shows Brecht and Weill as fascinated by America – but suspicious of it, too.
Well, politically it was so different to Brecht's vision. But politically and emotionally the Seven Deadly Sins is one of the most avant-garde pieces and it's still ahead of its time. Even the Landestheatre are still almost too embarrassed to explain what it's about, as if it's too wild.
What did your mother [who died in 1991] think of your Brecht/Weill work?

I don't think she thought much of it. She never really told me. I think she wanted to put it all behind her. She had this dream of me being this English girl – which I was for a long time.
We've just had the revised version of Broken English, from the earlier mixes before Steve Winwood added synth overdubs. It sounds much rawer, much tougher.
Look, I do love what Steve [Winwood] did. But it turned into something else. It became a bit more disco.
The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan is the emotional centrepiece of the album. Where did you find Shel Silverstein's song?

I was on a low-class theatre tour of England, in a play [Richard Nash's The Rainmaker] with Captain Onedin [actor Peter Gilmore]. It was crap, I was staying in theatrical digs up and down, horrible places. And it was on the radio that I heard The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan [by Dr Hook]. I put it in the file and kept it there for later. Then when I had this hit in Ireland [with 1976 country album, Dreamin' My Dreams, aka Faithless] and went to tour with a pickup band, I could see it was very powerful. I knew it was a great feminist song and if it was done by a woman it would be brilliant. So I just had to hope that no one else would think of it before I got to it.
I'm fascinated that, although married to Ben Brierly, you decided he wasn't good enough to play on Broken English. That was quite a tough, almost cold-blooded thing to do.
Ben was a great inspiration – but he wasn't good enough to play on it. So it was quite cold-blooded. But I had to be very cool. Mark Miller Mundy, the producer, wanted to put a superband together [and] I wouldn't have had as much control as I did. I had much more understanding and vision than anybody knew. I've actually plotted my career pretty carefully. I've always denied it, when people said, Are you planning all this? I always said, No, it's just inspiration that comes in my sleep. But that's not true.
So where was your head at? Because you were forward-thinking in some respects and in others...
Oh yes. I was still taking drugs. I hadn't got off drugs. But I'd got better.
Did you feel damaged?

I felt crushed. By the Redlands bust. My self-esteem went down so low, I think I would have killed myself. And I got that feeling that people really wanted me to kill myself. Which made it very difficult because I try to please. So I copped out and took drugs as a self-medication, and I took the heaviest one of all, so I wouldn't feel anything. And in that way it was very effective. It helped me to disengage my feelings from my brain and I was able to follow a plan.
It sounds like Broken English was a quintessential catharsis.

I could never admit that, I've never been able to. All sorts of things have been cathartic but I never would admit it, I don't know why. Too proud. But Pride is a good thing. Especially in the Seven Deadly Sins sense.
By Paul Trynka

Photos by: Ursula Kaufmann