God is Dead

“Never apologise, never explain - didn't we always say that? Well, I haven't and I don't.”

And she never did!

The saddest-of-sad news has reached our ears - one of the greatest of our Patron Saints, Miss Marianne Faithfull has departed to claim her rightful place at the top of the podium in the Fabulon Hall of Decadence. Black armbands all round, methinks...

There was never anyone else quite like Marianne - she simply oozed style and class, and indeed was for many years one of the most desired women on the planet!

Her glamorous background, her bohemian lifestyle, her relationships and her battle with drink and drugs and ill-health were all tabloid fodder for decades, yet she bounced back from it all to become a revered singer-songwriter with her own cult following - among whose number were Madam Arcati and I.

Indeed, I was thrilled to have an "Audience With God" [as Eddie Monsoon portrayed her in AbFab] way back in 2013! She was superb. Of course.

A very sad loss.

"Rebellion is the only thing that keeps you alive!"

"Maybe the most that you can expect from a relationship that goes bad is to come out of it with a few good songs."

And here's one...

Marianne Faithfull - The Ballad of Lucy Jordan

The morning sun touched lightly on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
In a white suburban bedroom in a white suburban town
As she lay there 'neath the covers dreaming of a thousand lovers
Till the world turned to orange and the room went spinning round.

At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair.
So she let the phone keep ringing and she sat there softly singing
Little nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair.

Her husband, he's off to work and the kids are off to school,
And there are, oh, so many ways for her to spend the day.
She could clean the house for hours or rearrange the flowers
Or run naked through the shady street screaming all the way.

At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair
So she let the phone keep ringing as she sat there softly singing
Pretty nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair.

The evening sun touched gently on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
On the roof top where she climbed when all the laughter grew too loud
And she bowed and curtsied to the man who reached and offered her his hand,
And he led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd.

At the age of thirty-seven she knew she'd found forever
As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair

"Bad behaviour makes men more glamorous. Women get destroyed, thrown out of society and locked up in institutions."

"I haven't got purity, and I don't think I ever did. I have always been, even as a child, a very decadent little person."

This song might well be her epitaph...

Marianne Faithfull - Sliding Through Life On Charm

The family tree was chainsawed Wednesday week
So now I have to mingle with the meek
Hey mister, you have finally met your match
Now everybody wants to kiss my snatch

To go where God knows who has gone before
I am a muse, not a mistress, not a whore
Oh, suburban shits who want some class
All queue up to kiss my ass

And I was only trying to please
I never got any royalties oh no, not me
I'm still sliding through life on charm
Sliding through life on charm

If Marianne was born a man she'd show you all
A way to piss your life against the wall
Go ahead why don't you leave me to these thugs
And creeps who want to fuck a nun on drugs?

Is it such a sin I never ever tried too hard?
I had to know how far was going too far
In proper homes throughout the land, Fathers try to understand
Why Eunice who is seventeen aspires to live her life like me

Oh no, can't ya see, Daddy?
She's just captivated by my charm
Sliding through life on charm

Sliding
Sliding
Never

I wonder why the schools don't teach anything useful nowadays
Like how to fall from grace and slide with elegance from a pedestal
I never asked to be on in the first place

Sliding on charm, sliding on charm
Sliding on charm, sliding on charm
Sliding on charm, sliding on charm
Sliding on charm

RIP, Marianne Faithfull (29th December 1946 - 30th January 2025)

Nieuw muziekfeest!

I said I'd try and get another one of my "Pick of the Pops" compilations done before the Festering Season crashes upon us, and 2023 crawls to its inevitable close - so let's have another look at/listen to some of the "newer" choons that have caught my ear of late, shall we? [I promise there'll be no "seasonal music"...]

Let's start as we mean to go on, with something quite kinky. Not sure even Billy Idol would have gone this far!

Nic Billington - White Wedding

Next, yet another in a long line of choons that stands out from the crowd, yet turns out to be nowhere near new [it's from @adecadeago, in fact] - but I had never heard it before the faboo Liza Tarbuck played it on her Radio 2 show, so it's as good as...

Ben Pearce - What I Might Do

And now for something completely different! A bizarre collaboration between an Italian folk-pop band and an operatic tenor? Right up our street, methinks:

Luca Bassanese & La Piccola Orchestra Popolare feat. Amadi Lagha - Ridi Pagliaccio

Even more off-the-wall, we always love an unexpected rendition of something familiar:

Isabel Pfefferkorn and Cello-Quartet - Toxic

...and we also love "kooky choreography"! [Thanks, Melanie!]

Emma Scherer and dancers - Feel It Still - a Frug [Portugal. The Man]

Marianne Faithfull is GOD. Thus it is only appropriate that a host of "alternative" artists have given their time and talent to release an album of covers of her songs as a fundraiser for her (as she recovers from "Long COVID"), including Cat Power, Iggy Pop, Joan As Police Woman, Lydia Lunch - and these two [duetting on one of my fave Marianne songs]!

Shirley Manson & Peaches - Why D’Ya Do It?

Changing the tone completely, here's something extremely "retro" - yet utterly brand new! Giving a nod to the "blue-eyed soul revival" that swirled around a few years ago when Amy Winehouse, Duffy and their ilk ruled the roost, this Amsterdam band has it nailed:

The Tibbs - Ain't it Funny

And, leaving the best to last... This! Campness abounds!

The Knocks & Sofi Tukker - One On One

As ever, dear reader, let me know your thoughts...

She's precocious, and she knows just what it takes to make a pro blush

Happy 80th birthday today to the multi-talented Miss Jackie DeShannon!

As I said way back in 2009:

Born the humbly-named Sharon Lee Myers, Miss De Shannon was a major collaborator over the years with such diverse artists as Ry Cooder, Randy Newman and Van Morrison, supported the Beatles on their first American tour in 1964, dated Elvis Presley AND Jimmy Page, and on the way wrote songs for Marianne Faithfull, The Byrds and Irma Thomas, had some hits of her own such as Bacharach and David's What The World Needs Now Is Love, and wrote When You Walk in the Room for The Searchers... Whew!

Let's celebrate the lady's songwriting talents, shall we? I featured her Grammy-winning Put a Little Love In Your Heart back in 2013, so we'll start this cavalcade of song instead with her own version of that Searchers hit:

Jackie DeShannon - When You Walk In The Room

Brenda Lee - Dum Dum

Tracey Ullman - Breakaway

Marianne Faithfull - Come And Stay With Me

Annie Lennox and Al Green - Put A Little Love In Your Heart

And finally, in my opinion, Miss DeShannon's magnum opus...

Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes

Talent, indeed.

Always walking up and down

John-John and I are off shopping till we drop today, in the charity shops of West London.

I wonder if we'll find anything, or whether we'll be singing this song...

Marianne Faithfull - Boulevard of Broken Dreams

I walk along the street of sorrow
The boulevard of broken dreams
Where gigolo and gigolette
Can take a kiss without regret
So they forget their broken dreams

You laugh tonight and cry tomorrow
When you behold your shattered schemes
Gigolo and gigolette
Wake up to find their eyes are wet
With tears that tell of broken dreams

Here is where you'll always find me
Always walking up and down
But I left my soul behind me
In an old cathedral town

The joy that you find here you borrow
You cannot keep it long it seems
Gigolo and gigolette
Still sing a song and dance along
The boulevard of broken dreams

Here is where you'll always find me
Always walking up and down
For I left my soul behind me
In an old cathedral town

The joy that you find here you borrow
You cannot keep it long it seems
But gigolo and gigolette
Still sing a song and dance along
The boulevard of broken dreams

Many happy returns, Marianne Evelyn Faithfull (born 29th December 1946)

Dance with me - don't dance with me, no

Following on from the reminisces this week has brought - seeing Adam Ant live for the first time, and singing my tits off to Alison Moyet (whose own comeback earlier in the year was a bit, errm, less than I had hoped for) - I thought I'd do a little catch-up of newer music released in the past few months by artists I have loved for much, much longer...

Bowie meets Bernard Hermann? There have been many attempts to compare his new song to other artists: such disparate souls as Dave Brubeck, Radiohead, Public Image Limited, Milton Nascimento, Robert Wyatt, Tricky and - inevitably - Scott Walker. Needless to say, David Bowie's latest artistic endeavour (with the Maria Schneider Orchestra and, once again, with Tony Visconti) is remarkable - a "Modern Jazz" take on some of the darker moments of his own Berlin phase, perhaps? It's Sue (Or in A Season Of Crime), and it is awesome:

David Bowie - Sue (Or In a Season of Crime)

Shamefully overlooked by the buying public (yet again - like so many artists with real talent and integrity), here's the single that the sublime Miss Marianne Faithfull released to coincide with her Give My Love To London album at the end of September (which I did write about at the time but never featured this track in full) - Sparrows Will Sing:

Marianne Faithfull - Sparrows Will Sing

How about this for a surprise? The return (after thirty years' absence!) of the man whose genius - more or less - influenced everything in his wake, Mr Bowie, Mr Eno and Mr Visconti included, Signor Giorgio Moroder. He's back, to show the young 'uns how it's done, with his faboo new single 74 Is the New 24! [Yes, that is his age...]

Giorgio Moroder - 74 Is the New 24

Featured as an interlude on Princess Kylie's Kiss Me Once tour (that continues as we speak), here are four tracks segued into one video sequence, recently released as an EP. Produced by William Baker in conjunction with producer/songwriter Fernando Garibay, and featuring the gorgeous Aaron Sillis, here's Sleepwalker:

Kylie & Garibay - Sleepwalker

And in complete contrast - here is a sneaky radio rip of Our Princess in another collaboration, with that other "national treasure" Jools Holland, in a cover of the Clash classic Should I Stay Or should I Go? [from Jools' new album Sirens Of Song]:



One of our Patron Saints Miss Amanda Lear has been slogging away all year to promote her album of Elvis covers (all done in her own inimitable fashion of course). Shamefully, I (an avowed Elvis-avoider) have not featured any of it. With the release this month of the deluxe edition of that album My Happiness, it is time to make amends with the Almighty Remix of her version of Suspicious Minds:

Amanda Lear - Suspicious Minds (Almighty Mix)

And, to conclude - just because I think we all deserve a bit of eye candy - here's the newest fantabulosa effort from our houseboys Kazaky - Pulse:

Kazaky - Pulse

Mine's racing...

As ever, enjoy - and let me know your thoughts!

God speaks to rubbishy sluts

“Never apologise, never explain - didn't we always say that? Well, I haven't and I don't.”

"Maybe the most that you can expect from a relationship that goes bad is to come out of it with a few good songs."

Marianne Faithfull - The Ballad of Lucy Jordan

“The morning sun touched lightly on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
In a white suburban bedroom in a white suburban town
As she lay there 'neath the covers dreaming of a thousand lovers
Till the world turned to orange and the room went spinning round.

At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair.
So she let the phone keep ringing and she sat there softly singing
Little nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair.

Her husband, he's off to work and the kids are off to school,
And there are, oh, so many ways for her to spend the day.
She could clean the house for hours or rearrange the flowers
Or run naked through the shady street screaming all the way.

At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair
So she let the phone keep ringing as she sat there softly singing
Pretty nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair.

The evening sun touched gently on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
On the roof top where she climbed when all the laughter grew too loud
And she bowed and curtsied to the man who reached and offered her his hand,
And he led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd.

At the age of thirty-seven she knew she'd found forever
As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair”

"Bad behaviour makes men more glamorous. Women get destroyed, thrown out of society and locked up in institutions."

"I haven't got purity, and I don't think I ever did. I have always been, even as a child, a very decadent little person."

Marianne Faithfull (born 29th December 1946)
Patron Saint (and according to Eddie Monsoon, God, with whom I have had an audience) Marianne Faithfull has said what we're all thinking:

Speaking to ITV News in an interview ahead of the release of her new album, Faithfull was asked what she thought of young artists like Miley Cyrus or Rihanna and the way they dress.

She replied: "I think they are complete rubbishy sluts actually."

"I've no idea what they think. I cannot understand that way of thinking."

"That they want to be so much in the music business that they're prepared to make complete fools of themselves. I'm amazed," she added.

I think 'nuff said. Let Miss Faithfull show them how it's done:

Marianne Faithfull - Sliding Through Life On Charm

The family tree was chainsawed Wednesday week
So now I have to mingle with the meek
Hey mister, you have finally met your match
Now everybody wants to kiss my snatch

To go where God knows who has gone before
I am a muse, not a mistress, not a whore
Oh, suburban shits who want some class
All queue up to kiss my ass

And I was only trying to please
I never got any royalties oh no, not me
I'm still sliding through life on charm
Sliding through life on charm

If Marianne was born a man she'd show you all
A way to piss your life against the wall
Go ahead why don't you leave me to these thugs
And creeps who want to fuck a nun on drugs?

Is it such a sin I never ever tried too hard?
I had to know how far was going too far
In proper homes throughout the land, Fathers try to understand
Why Eunice who is seventeen aspires to live her life like me

Oh no, can't ya see, Daddy?
She's just captivated by my charm
Sliding through life on charm

Sliding
Sliding
Never

I wonder why the schools don't teach anything useful nowadays
Like how to fall from grace and slide with elegance from a pedestal
I never asked to be on in the first place

Sliding on charm, sliding on charm
Sliding on charm, sliding on charm
Sliding on charm, sliding on charm
Sliding on charm

Marianne's new album Give My Love To London is released on 29th September 2014 - and here's a delicious behind-the-scenes trailer:

Marianne Faithfull - Give My Love To London trailer

Marianne Faithfull official website

An audience with God

"Hi Jon. What are you doing tonight?" came the call from darling Paul. I was on the bus in Wood Green at the time, having spent time sheltering from the grey and grizzly hideousness of what laughingly passes for British mid-Summer in the equally hideous "Shopping City".

"No plans," I said.

"How do you fancy going to see Marianne Faithfull tonight? I have a ticket going. My treat, as part of your birthday present."

The bus full of grey and grizzly people was treated to a half-choke, half scream! Well, dear reader - what would you do?

Miss Marianne Faithfull - famously depicted by Edina Monsoon in Ab Fab as God - has been an icon, an inspiration and a heroine of mine forever, yet I had never seen her live. On each previous opportunity, something else got in the way. Holidays, money, that sort of thing. It was mainly the latter that prevented me from even trying for a ticket this time around, when details of Yoko Ono's lineup for the Meltdown Festival 2013 was announced (I wanted to see Siouxsie too).

And so it was I headed to the South Bank and met up with Paul - and "journo-slut" Alex Hopkins, and the effervescent Lauren Henderson (aka Rebecca Chance) and her coterie, who were also attending the pilgrimage - for the grande dame's show.

She's tiny. She is older and rounder. Yet Marianne Faithfull is electrifying. Even from the outset she had the audience rapt with attention, as the strains of Broken English - "What are you fighting for?!" - echoed around the impressive auditorium of the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

This was a subtle, understated set, just Miss Faithfull and guitarist Bill Frisell. Yet every nuance, every emotion was wracked out of a wonderfully varied selection from her enviable back catalogue - famous and not-so-famous numbers including Vagabond Ways, Rich Kid Blues, She, Leonard Cohen's Tower of Song, Bob Dylan's I'll Keep It with Mine, a chillingly minimalist version of Randy Newman’s song In Germany Before The War, Tom Waits' Strange Weather and the crowd-pleaser As Tears Go By [a song which is, remarkably, 50 years old next year].

She proved that the old rebel was still alive and kicking and received rapturous applause for her defiant version of John Lennon's Working Class Hero (given that this was Yoko's festival, I guess it was a must). Every hair on my neck was on end. And as she lit up a (forbidden) cigarette on stage, the rebels in the audience cheered some more!

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they're telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me

I adored her version of the 30s classic Boulevard of Broken Dreams ("Where gigolo and gigolette can take a kiss without regret"), and of course I was in raptures when she sang that eternal anthem for frustrated middle-aged people everywhere The Ballad of Lucy Jordan.

It was a brief show (just over an hour) but for me one of the most satisfying concerts in a long while. The crowd (and I) gave her a well-deserved standing ovation. I am still coming down to earth today...

Eddie Monsoon was right. Marianne Faithfull is God.

And here she is singing As Tears Go By last night:

Marianne Faithfull and Bill Frisell - As Tears Go By (Queen Elizabeth Hall, London 22.06.2013)

Miss Faithfull's official website

Yoko melts

"Yoko Ono is a fascinating artist, as are the collaborators she is bringing from all over the world.

"She's an energetic and inspiring peace and environmental activist and a champion for women's rights. It's a privilege to have her curating Meltdown's 20th anniversary." - Jude Kelly, artistic director at Southbank Centre

One of the highlights of this year's Meltdown Festival will be the first live appearance of punk icon Siouxsie for five years.

The Royal Festival Hall will witness the old and the new on 20 June when Iggy and the Stooges are supported by hotly tipped all-girl punk group Savages, while Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon will be performing at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with her latest incarnation Body/Head.

Elsewhere, 1960s singer Marianne Faithfull will team up with leading jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, while there will also be performances from Peaches, Patti Smith, Boy George and comedian Reggie Watts, with the full line-up yet to be confirmed.

Ono will bring down the curtain on the festival by joining a group of special guests for the first live performance of Double Fantasy - the last album recorded by her and Lennon, which was released just three weeks before the former Beatle's death in 1980.

I only wish I could afford tickets for all of it...

Read the whole article on the BBC

Yoko Ono's Meltdown is at the Southbank Centre from 14th - 23rd June 2013. Tickets go on sale to Southbank members tomorrow (9th April).

Not as much about torture, sodomy and death

Sod all this festering season power-ballad-cum-glam-cum-bells-cum-choral Xmas nonsense - here's what promises to be a proper record!

"It is a very different record than volume one," Pirates of the Caribbean producer Hal Willner told Rolling Stone. "It seems happier – not as much about torture, sodomy and death."

In the second instalment (the first was in 2006) of a project instigated by none other than the alt-sex-god Johnny Depp (who else), a new compilation of pirate ballads will feature contributions from some of the most anarchic motley crew of artists (possibly) ever assembled in one place!

Featuring such stars and mega-stars as Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Marc Almond, Tom Waits, Keith Richards, Angelica Huston, Michael Stipe, Courtney Love, Nick Cave, Marianne Faithfull, Todd Rundgren, Beth Orton, Macy Gray, Susanna Hoffs, Antony Hegarty, Shane MacGowan, Dr John, Sean Lennon and Mr Depp himself, the album Son of Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys sounds like it may be an essential addition to the anthology of bizarre miscellanea that forms our music collection...

Here's Mr McGowan and Mr Depp with one of the tracks from the compilation - Leaving of Liverpool:

Shane MacGowan and Johnny Depp - Leaving of Liverpool

Son of Rogue's Gallery will be released via Anti-Records on 19th February 2013 as a double CD.