1989, Ginsberg and Corso – The Conversation Continues – 12

Marianne Faithfull, 1992, New York City – photo: Allen Ginsberg, courtesy Stanford University Libraries / Allen Ginsberg Estate

Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg in conversation continuing from – here 

GC:  Oh Marianne (Faithfull), you met her? She used to be my old friend.

AG: She’s teaching, third-year-in-a-row, at Naropa. You saw her at Naropa didn’t you?

GC: No,no, I wish I had. I knew her early in the game.

AG: She was there last year.

GC : I knew her in Paris in 1964, that’s a good twenty-five years ago, she  must be grown-up?

AG: She was my date in Albert Hall when (Bob) Dylan was there in ’65, Dylan asked me to take her to a…

GC:  See, I met her in 1964 in Paris and she was young and beautiful. Now I hear her voice, she’s like a Marlene Dietrich sound.

AG:  But I just want to point something out to you. I was going into an anecdote about Dylan asking me to..   and you wouldn’t let me finish my anecdote.

GC: You can finish your anecdote.

AG: Yeah, ok.

GC: I was telling you that Marianne Faithfull got me, that’s all. I loved her.

AG: What was your..

GC: I told ya . I met her in 1964 in Paris.

AG: And what did she do? where did you go?

GC: She told me – we were in La Coupole –  that if I wrote some lyrics she’d get Mick Jagger to do it with the Rolling Stones – this is 1964 and the Rolling Stones weren’t even known then, ok? – So, go ahead, what about Dylan and er..

AG Oh well.. when I went to London in ’65 (the time of Don’t Look Back)..

GC: Yeah,

AG:   …Wholly Communion, The Albert Hall Poetry Reading). So, Dylan was singing in the Albert Hall and he.. Marianne was on the scene …

GC: After or before?

AG: 1965

GC: After (the) Wholly Communion or before?  because Wholly Communion was ’65.

AG: Before,  before.

GC:  Okay.

AG: See, (because) Dylan filled Albert Hall first.

GC: Yeah.

AG: And on the opening night, (there were two nights running),  so he asked me to be Marianne’s date and got us a limousine

GC: Right.

AG Apparently I was nice to her because she still remembers it.

GC: Wow!

AG: Because everybody on the scene was..heavy

GC: She was a sweetheart.. Good heart

AG: Catholic girl from a nunnery!

GC: Yeah, she has a good heart.

AG  So..

GC: We filled Albert Hall!

AG: Yeah,  that was the beginning of the international poetry-reading series

GC: Yeah.

AG: What was that called?  The Poetry..? The International Poetry Incarnation? – and when was that? July 19..

GC: Sixty-five

to be continued

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