Anita Lane – Rest in Peace

When the phone rings at an unusual time of the day, from a number that rarely calls unexpectedly, it’s a powerful instantaneous swing of emotion from excitedly answering the call to that moment that you hear the tone in the voice on the other end of the line: Anita was gone and in that moment all the memories of her and all the influence of her washes over and it’s all you can think of. 

Anita was a beautiful unworldly spirit with the tenderest of voices, she will be dreadfully missed.

Anita was introduced to us through the Bad Seeds and it was from that initial relationship she drifted in and out of our lives for the decades that followed. There was always something magical that happened when Anita arrived, she changed the perception of everything you looked at.

She was inspiring, and brought something uniquely her to the work of everyone she collaborated with.

Every artist wants to be unpredictable; we want our artists to be unpredictable, Anita was, in her essence, wildly unpredictable.

There was something incendiary about her, it’s very easy to be passionate, clever and insightful with many words, it’s quite a genius gift to be passionate, clever and insightful with few, and that was what Anita would do. 

She would sum up an emotion, a situation, a lifetime, in one effortless sentence when others would struggle to show meaning using long ranging books of poetry and testaments of prose. 

Not overthinking, not over analysing, just being in the moment, just being effortlessly talented and true to herself.

When she collaborated with immense talents and friends like Mick Harvey, Rowland S Howard, Nick Cave, Barry Adamson and Blixa Bargeld, she brought a magic that no one could have predicted or expected. 

Our thoughts are with her family, her friends and her fans. It’s such a sad loss, but we are grateful she came into our life and that we had the opportunity to help her give some of her gifts to the world. 

Anita was born on 18th March 1960 and left us too soon.

Two recent beautifully written articles about Anita:

The Quietus

Rolling Stone

Listen to Anita here

• Videos of Anita
• Anita Lane – The World’s A Girl
• Anita Lane – Do That Thing
• Anita Lane – Jesus Almost Got Me
• Anita Lane – The Next Man That I See
• Barry Adamson and Anita Lane – These Boots Are Made For Walking
• Mick Harvey and Anita Lane – Harley Davidson
• Gudrun Gut and Anita Lane – Firething

Photos by Jessamy Calkin, Joe Dilworth, Wendy Morrissey

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