As Years Go By

Another birthday, like the warming sun, rises on the horizon. I do not freak about these things as much as some because 1) there’s no point…like I told my city desk editor long ago when I forgot to log in the weather report, “The weather’s going to happen whether we report it or not and 2) I keep a close eye on my generation and know that as long as I’m in the upper percentile when it comes to health, wealth and having my wits about me I can live with aging (such as it was in high school and such as it ever will be). I pay particular attention to the successes of my generation, especially the early successes, and most especially Marianne Faithfull. If she had been born in Enfield, Connecticut (or more precisely Springfield, Massachusetts, the birthing place of most us little nutmeggers from our north border town), she would’ve been a classmate of mine…quite possibly a girlfriend. I fell for her anyway…even from half a world a way. And who wouldn’t fall for the sweet, demur, young thing that appears in the video above (not accounting for the miniature aircraft carrier protruding off her topside). There she is all of 19, with a hit song on her hands written by none other than Mick Jagger. Who knew what lie ahead?
A romance with Jagger; multiple divorces; episodic drug addiction; institutionalization; a suicide attempt; a lover who did commit suicide; the loss of one child in the courts, another in birthing; a flirtation with political terrorism; cancer; homelessness.  She was the female icon of London's Swinging Sixties; she co-wrote Sister Morphine and inspired a half dozen other classic songs of the era; she married a Vibrator and became godmother of the punk movement; she acted in Checkov at 21, Shakespeare at 23, played opposite Nicol Williamson, Anthony Hopkins and Orson Welles (and became the first actor in a mainstream film to utter the word fuck—thus unleashing the careers of a thousand desperate screenwriters). She got beat out by Helen Mirren for a best actress award; won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Women’s World Art Awards, Whew! And in the following video she delivers the best rendition of Pirate Jenny this side of Lotte Lenya. Compare her voice here with her voice from As Tears Go Byand tell me all the living summarized in the previous paragraph isn’t there in spades:


Well, I was class president and editor of the student paper…still Marianne Faithfull may be the measure for all baby boomers. In Love’s Body, Norman O. Brown writes:

The king personifies the pomp and pleasure of the community; but must also bear the burden of royalty, and, as a scapegoat, take away the sins…It is a story not only of triumph, but also of crime and punishment.

Brown was writing in a political context, but I think the passage applies more to artists than kings or other political powers. Artists do that for us. They live the lives—for both better and worse--that convention and domesticity prevent most of us from living, and in doing so they take away the sin of our timidity.
In the past 20 years or so, we’ve had a spate of artist biographies—Great Balls of Fire, Ray, Walk the Line, etc. They all follow the same pattern—up from hardscrabble beginnings; undeniable, but sometimes uncontrollable talent; discovery; skyrocketing fame; battle with personal demons; crash and burn; the Phoenix-like rising from the ashes. It's mythic--a tale we tell ourselves over and over again to assure ourselves that this is how the world works. The Marianne Faithfull bio-pic hasn’t been attempted yet, and gods help the moviemaker who tries to compress all her living into 2 hours. For those of us who have been paying attention though, the movie can wait. We’ve been watching her life unfold in real time. And it’s a true wonder that she will be celebrating the same birthday as I will this year. It’s a wonder because she has lived her life so entirely on the edge, and I have lived mine a comfortable remove from the edge. The difference between us (well, one of them anyway) best summed up in these--perhaps the most prosaic words ever to leave her lips-- "I'm not prepared to be 70 and absolutely broke. I realised last year that I have no safety net at all and I'm going to have to get one.”
I’ve got my safety net of course…and it’s in as good a shape as safety nets can be these days. But as I blow out the candles in a few days, don’t think I won’t be asking myself if I wouldn’t trade my safety net for a co-writing credit on Sister Morphine.
Below, a video from Marianne’s later acting career, opposite Kerry Fox (the Australian Meryl Streep, and as such the greatest underrated actress of our time). It’s another rich character role for Marianne Faithfull, who gained her character the old fashioned way--she lived through it and survived herself.