Marianne Faithfull
Broken English

THE REVIEW

1)

"Listen, listen..."

"......"

"I tell you, listen..."

"......"

"Mick Jagger is dead..."

"What?"

"Yes, Mick Jagger, the fabulous prince consort from whom you ran away..."

"...."

"Oh Marianne, look... doesn't it seem to you that the walls are now trees and the floor a meadow?"

"Oh yes... but what does this dream mean? That I want to kill Mick?"

"Oh no, what it means is that you are building your new house."

"......"

2)

In the mid-seventies, Marianne Faithfull lingered on a wall in Soho like any other junkie.

She stayed there, perpetually fleeing from a golden past, completely out of her mind and all in all happy to be nothing...

Oh, the nothing/pain alternation was much better compared to when everyone pointed at her whispering: "look, that's the bride, oh yes, that's her."

In short, from swinging London's princess to the princess of the outcasts,

3)

"A new house and a new voice"

"A new voice?"

"Yes, suffering has forged it and now it is sharp as a sword, harsh as a sentence, and hoarse as a cough from Mary the coquettish."

"....."

"So enough with this wall, now let yourself be taken by the hand"

"....."

"Yes, let yourself be taken by the hand by those scruffy punk knights and then maybe..."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe some shrewd musician will help you find the most suitable dress for your blues soul"

"....."

4)

Sometimes it takes time to find your true home. And it takes time to make your voice truly resemble you. And, as a famous song says, you need to go station to station, that is, from station to station.

And in that slow and absurd passing like an agony, sometimes it happens to operate slowly like an alchemical transmutation.... and so shit becomes gold, and the voice becomes song.

Technically speaking, in Marianne's case, this talk of shit and gold simply means one less octave and a lot more expressiveness. Which is what happens when you transform from a whispering angel to a blues girl with a voice as wrinkled as an old man's face.

Exactly the type of voice needed to stage the fabulous hybrid between soul cabaret Morrison/Doors style and a sort of Central European version of blues (Dietrich blues).

And here we are talking not so much about music, but about attitude, about soul...

.

5)

Here, ladies and gentlemen. This is, more or less, the story of "Broken English," one of the most beautiful albums of the late seventies. And a unique piece on top of that, such that there isn’t another album like this one...

Consider it a kind of pop wave with a very warm heart... or, if you prefer, everything that revolves around the concept of a ballad or even a modern classical lied...

With a whole series of "almosts" intersecting and interlocking (the almost spectral, the almost sweet, the almost blues, the almost reggae, the almost pop, the almost wave)... And that precisely by intersecting and interlocking, they compose that unique sound we were talking about.

And here I stop, because, as often happens with the albums you love the most, words fail...

Let's just say that the songs are all magnificent and that a phrase like "Danger is a great joy and darkness is bright as fire" only someone like Marianne could sing it.

6)

But at least about "Working class hero" you will tell us something? All right, it is cold and hypnotic (with guitar riffs like whiplashes) and represents as best as possible the social conditioning Lennon talked about...And “Why d’ya do it”? Oh fabulous, fabulous!!! Reggae rhythm, hard guitar, Marianne screaming and crude like never before…And “The ballad of Lucy Jordan”? Oh it's a magical synth folk hybrid… and talks about a housewife...

There was a nice little film in the eighties, "Montenegro tango," that too talked about a housewife and had a beautiful ending, one of those that give satisfaction... Imagine a happy family with the little wife bringing Sunday roast to the table... oh that’s the ending.

Only then a caption appears saying something like "beware, there’s poison in the roast"... Well, the ballad of Lucy Jordan, which was the soundtrack for that film, has a different ending.

Very, very different.

7)

And anyway, at sixteen, I didn’t know Marianne was the lady of the Stones, I didn’t know about the attempted suicide, I didn’t know about the dream I told you about.

I didn’t even know Lennon’s “Working class hero”...

And I didn’t need any romantic myth to like an album (I need myths less today, perhaps because I know that life is shit)...

But at sixteen, I fell in love with this album... and I still love it today...

Au revoir...