With the reissue of Kissin’ Time looming, Marianne Faithfull is hoping that 2023 will bring her a new lease of life post-Covid…
By Ian Woolley
It is astonishing to consider that Marianne Faithfull has been making music for over 55 years.
Marianne Faithfull 1964 (credit David Magnus)
From releasing hit single ‘As Tears Go By’ at the young age of 16, her return with the Broken English, and classic albums such as Strange Weather, Vagabond Ways, Before the Poison, Give My Love to London, Negative Capability, and now the reissue of her 2002 album called Kissin’ Time.
At the start of the pandemic, Marianne was admitted into hospital with Covid. We asked her is she getting back to some sort of normality now she is over the worse.
“It was a worrying time yes. When I came out of that I was very damaged,” said Marianne. “I’m much better but I can’t walk that well anymore. I’m not really OK.”
Originally released in 2002, this year see its first-ever release on vinyl, there’s something defiantly fearless about ‘Kissin’ Time‘. From the title track to ‘Sex With Strangers‘ to the gorgeous, synth-laden balladry of ‘I’m On Fire‘, a song Faithfull described as “a hymn to love” and originally intended to co-write with The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson.
Faithfull in 1978 (credit Adrian Boot)
The album’s lyrical frankness, as blunt in its depiction of the life of German singer Nico as it is about Faithfull’s relationship with her parents on ‘Like Being Born‘, is hardly without precedent in Faithfull’s oeuvre: from ‘Sister Morphine‘ to ‘Broken English‘ to her two volumes of memoirs, Marianne Faithfull has seldom given the impression of being an artist much given to pulling her punches.
‘Kissin’ Time’ was, as Marianne puts it, “about life and joy”, a mood exacerbated by, of all things. Faithfull fell over and broke her shoulder before its recording. “I had my life flash before my eyes,” she later recalled. “I realised I could check out without guilt or shame, but instead I twisted in the air and landed on my shoulder. It was interesting to learn that I really wanted to live and it had a big effect on the record”.
Faithfull is able to transcend the vagaries of fashion and changing taste and is held in a different kind of regard to her peers. Kissin’ Time assembled a cast of younger artists far hipper than one suspected Faithfull’s more famous contemporaries could have mustered. Blur, Beck, Pulp, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and lauded US alt-rock guitarist Matt Sweeney, shapeshifting French singer-songwriter Etienne Daho. “Aging rock stars take note,” as one contemporary review of Kissin’ Time put it.
When asked what drew younger artists to her, Faithfull usually either professed ignorance or self-deprecatingly suggested it was because she “had the best stories”.
Listening to ‘Kissin’ Time’, you wonder if it might not be to do with her willingness to take risks, to step outside her comfort zone. Within the lyrics of one of the songs ‘I’m On Fire‘ off the album announces…
And so time passed began to change.
‘I found that I could love again.
At first it feels a little strange –
Happiness, no more pain
For Marianne Faithfull, maybe there is a happy ending after all.
Read the full interview with Marianne Faithfull in our February issue of the Beat out now. In it, she talks about being discovered, her break-up with Jagger, and her wish for the future. Order your copy via our website.
Marianne Faithfull’s ‘Kissin’ Time’ is reissued on January 27th, 2023. For more info see: http://www.mariannefaithfull.org.uk/homepage/