My rock ’n’roll friendship with Lindy Morrison

She was in the Go-Betweens, Tracey Thorn was in the Marine Girls, their 30-year friendship enhanced both their livesOn 31 March 1983, she burst into my dressing room, asking at the top of her voice, “Has anyone here got a lipstick I can borrow?” I looked up to see a tall woman in a Lurex dress, with a mass of blonde hair. Our two bands, Marine Girls and theGo-Betweens, were on the same bill at the Lyceum in London. I was 20, and she was 31. I was a tentative singer, she was a loud, outspoken drummer. I was from suburbia, she was from Brisbane, Australia. And I was still a student, while she had already been a social worker, then joined a feminist punk band called Xero. She ’d hitchhiked across Europe with a girlfriend, she’d seen every art film, read every avant-garde book. She’d slept atShakespeare and Co in Paris, she ’d swum with Roger Moore, she could recite Kate Millett’sSexual Politics. But I didn ’t know any of this. I just knew that she looked like self-belief in a minidress, and that she had arrived in my life. “Whowas that? ” I asked when she had gone. “That,” came the reply, “wasLindy Morrison. ”It took a couple of years for us to become friends. We were opposites in many ways, and at different stages of life, but there were similarities: we both lived with the boyfriend we were in a band with; we had strong opinions about everything – feminism, love and art; we liked Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Patti Smith, Simone de Beauvoir, and we...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Life and style Friendship Women Music Culture Psychology Science Health & wellbeing Books Source Type: news