Special Guest Blogger: Marianne Faithfull

If you’re expecting a sobriquet like The Divine Marianne, Queen of Cool, Architect of Bohemian Bliss, you’ll be sorely disappointed. I’m just a lass from East London who wandered into the rock ‘n’ roll circus, tripped over the ringmaster’s ego, and somehow ended up in the tightrope act. Without a net.
I grew up in a world where posh meant a hatbox and trouble meant the randy milkman. My father, a dashing war hero with the constitution of a wet noodle, once told me, Marianne, you’ll go far, but not too far, love. And preferably in a straight line. Ha! If only he’d known.
By the time I was 19, I’d traded my Oxfam-approved upbringing for a flat in Chelsea, a disdain for authority, and a nascent obsession with the Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger once said I had a voice like a chain saw that’s forgotten how to sing. He didn’t say it nicely. But here’s the thing about Mick: he’s a terrible poet, a dubious philosopher, and a man who once paid me in cocaine and compliments. Which, as currency goes, is about as reliable as a bus in Manchester.
To be honest I was rubbish at being a rock star. I mean, look at me. I didn’t fit the mold of the waifish siren or the leather-clad Amazon. I was… a woman. With opinions. And a habit.
And, let’s be honest, a talent for self-sabotage that would make a cactus blush.
My 70s album Broken English? A masterpiece, obviously. But back then, critics called it 'the sound of a woman who’s had one cigarette too many.' Darling, I was one cigarette too many.
And yet! That record became a goddamn feminist anthem. Because nothing says female empowerment like coughing up a lung while singing about being the dog’s bollocks at love.
I also spent a decade battling heroin addiction. But hey, that’s just my way of keeping up with the times. If today’s Gen Z is battling screen addiction, I was battling the same thing but with a needle. Classic.
By the 90s, I’d kicked the habit (mainly because my veins looked like a map of the Amazon and I needed them for blood tests). My voice, once dubbed the raspy whisper of a thousand smoke-filled salons, had evolved into something… gnarlier.
I then spent two decades performing at places like the Glastonbury Festival, where I’d stagger onstage in a dress made of curtains and belt out “Sister Morphine” and  the kids loved it.
But here’s the thing about dying: it’s dull. All the drama, the tears, the existential crises—it’s just one long, drawn-out anticlimax. I tried to spice it up by contracting Breast Cancer, Hepatitis C, Emphysema, Pneumonia and Covid so take your pick which one finally got me but I outlived Bowie, Jackson, Prince and George MIchael and my last tax return.
I’ve been a muse, a menace and a magnate of melodrama but never, ever boring.