Fifty years since first rocking the establishment, Marianne Faithfull´s intimate new album finds her still at glorious odds with the worldTo get to Marianne Faithfull´s apartment above a Montparnasse boulevard, you go up four floors in a tiny art deco lift, the kind in which two people have to get to know each other pretty well. The door is opened by Miriam, Faithfull´s twentysomething helper who comes every morning, staying until 6pm (she´s an aspiring film-maker, and killer coffee-maker). Books teeter everywhere in piles, on the floor next to shelves, and all over the dining table. An orchid also flowers opulently on it (stolen from a hotel room by Faithfull´s friend, Roger Waters), and a framed letter from Faithfull´s father stands next to it. It was sent just after the publication of her 1994 memoir. `It was a strange wartime marriage of two people that produced you, darling,` it goes. `I feel proud, not only of your achievement in making a successful career, but of your success in growing into such a nice and mature person. Lots of love, your Dad.`A voice to raise terror, full of rattle and coal dust, suddenly roars down the hall. `MIRIAM!` A few minutes later, Marianne Faithfull appears - but she´s not terrifying at all. Her smile beams as she hobbles slowly; she smiles almost constantly today, despite being in obvious pain. She fell and broke her back in 2013, then fell and broke her hip the following summer. Its replacement was done badly, leading to an infection around the prosthesis. Her shoulder requires an operation this autumn, then there´s the arthritis in her left arm and hand - her writing hand. Continue reading...
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