‘There was a little bit of the devil in her': Damon Albarn and Rufus Wainwright remember Marianne Faithfull

The Guardian

31-01-2025

I met Marianne somewhere in the early 2000s in a studio on the Goldhawk Road. Alex [James, Blur bassist] was hanging out with her at the time and he'd invited me down to the studio. I think we were all in a high party mode at the time. I sat down and had quite a good banter with her straight away.
We were quite lairy with each other. I said: 'I can sit down and write a song, a perfect song.' And she said: 'All right, well go on then.' And I sat down and I wrote the song which became Green Fields in one go. I don't remember a lot more about that evening, but that's how I met her.
We'd always hang out with each other when I was in Paris. She'd hang out with all the Nick Cave people. I didn't see her so much when she got back to London and the last few years I didn't really see her at all.
She had always been highly regarded in my family house. My mum had been obsessed with her album Broken English. I can clearly remember her dancing around the living room singing Why D'Ya Do It?
And as a person she was just lovely, beautiful, wonderful. I'm just going through the pictures of her you've got in the Guardian and the people she worked with – that's quite a roll call. I bet you everyone says they absolutely loved her.
As for her qualities as a singer – well, she was authentic. She wasn't the greatest of singers, but then again, that's not what made her so special. It was the life lived through that voice, that journey from being this seemingly sweet, innocent beauty into this incredible sort of matriarch of indie.
Was she motherly to me? No. We always had a laugh. She had an endless source of incredible, somewhat salacious stories about people who had all become much more circumscribed in their behaviour. She was always a bit cynical about how people were transformed into pillars of the establishment. But she was always true to her creed.
Blur made a song with her, called Kissin Time. I only vaguely remember it. I mean, look, we were just another of her backing bands.
There was never anyone like her, and there never will be. There was a strange dichotomy between this will-o-the-wisp flowery beauty and this hard, gnarly rock'n'roll figure. She had these two strains, which were very strong, and yet kind of complete opposites.
She was a big fan of my mother[Kate McGarrigle], of the McGarrigle sisters, and occasionally she would come to their shows. I met her backstage when I was a little kid, occasionally. But it was really through [esteemed music producer] Hal Willner that I got to know her: he would do these tribute shows, to Harry Smith or Leonard Cohen, and she would show up. I always loved her album Broken English, with [the lyrics from The Ballad of Lucy Jordan] 'She realised she'd never ride/Through Paris in a sports car …'. But when she did a Kurt Weill tribute with Hal, and sang the Ballad of the Soldier's Wife, that's when she really clicked.
And then it really gelled when I started hanging out with Carrie Fisher, because Marianne and Carrie were very, very close. I had several wild evenings seated between them, kind of along for the ride. They were completely classic, original legends, who seemed to live in a universe all their own, and it was very decadent, incredibly funny and totally rock'n'roll. One of the craziest times was when I had a week of partying with Marianne and my mother, which I'm not going to get into too many details of – it was quite intense. I think I went to rehab two weeks later. But we'd talk about music, funny jokes, sex, the craziness of life.
Marianne was someone who struggled with addiction for many years, and she never quite won that battle. It was always haunting her. So I think, even if she was sober, there was a little bit of the devil in her, always, and on one hand you were very attracted to that, and very inspired, but you also had to be careful.
But the main thing about her, putting the drugs aside, is that she was a great fan of music. She was really affected by a wonderful song or brilliant performance. She clocked pretty early on that I was on a fairly good [career] track, and she really was excited for me. And it was when she came to me and said: 'Rufus, you've really made it', that I knew that I had. I knew there wasn't a modicum of bullshit in her assessments in general.
That's what I most cherish about the relationship with her: when she was clear-eyed, and engaged artistically, she was such a rich judge of depth and meaning, and the true brilliance of what music can be. There was nothing cheap about her whatsoever.