Marianne Faithfull

Musings Of A Broken Record pays tribute to the iconic singer who passed away last Thursday.

Upon hearing about Marianne Faithfull’s death last Thursday at the age of 78, I was devastated. I decided to pay tribute to her with help from Robert C. Gilbert of Listening Sessions.

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As a teenager who frequently read about music, Marianne Faithfull was one of those whose name was constantly mentioned. My love of her music can be traced back twenty years.

When I was 19, I took a course on the early history of rock music at my local college. I was determined to become a music journalist, and this course was going to be a foot in the door before I attended college the following year. Things never panned out that way after college, but that course did shape my musical tastes.

The instructor was this cool older guy who was shocked by my musical knowledge. One night the topic of Marianne Faithfull came up in class. I can’t remember if I had heard “Broken English” at that point, but her seminal 1979 album did come up in conversation. Unfortunately, like most conversations on Faithfull, it steered towards Mick Jagger and her infamous 1979 jilted lover anthem “Why’d Ya Do It?”

I’ve had at least two conversations like this in my lifetime. The other was five years ago at a used record shop. Marianne Faithfull brought so much more to the table than stories involving Mick Jagger and one album track with colourful lyrical content.

After taking this class, I got into her music and asked for a budget Greatest Hits CD I’d spotted somewhere.

At the time, I was partial to her 1964 version of “As Tears Go By”. Because the CD consisted of her later material for Island Records, it contained her 1987 re-recording from the album Strange Weather instead. It’s this 1987 version that came to mind when I wanted to pay tribute to Marianne Faithfull.

This slowed-down version of one of her best-known recordings is beautiful. Gone is the angelic folk voice she had in 1964, replaced with the world-weary rasp that helped give her a career revival 15 years later. This cover is the closest example of acting through song I can think of this side of Kate Bush. It conjures up visions of Marianne Faithfull sitting at a park bench watching people around her while reflecting on her life.

Faithfull was still pretty young at the time—she was only in her early 40s when that version was released. She had been through a lot, though, giving the track more meaning than it had 23 years earlier.

Earlier in her career, Faithfull had been more of a folk chanteuse known for her association with the Rolling Stones. She had a string of pop hits, made a few films (1968’s Girl On A Motorcycle might be her best known), and was more in a category with other 1960s “it girls” of the time which is likely why I had a fascination with her career.

I asked

Robert C. Gilbert

of Listening Sessions if he had any favourite tracks from the earlier part of her career:

Marianne Faithfull's music in the sixties is, I grant you, essentially the prelude for what was to follow. That doesn't negate, however, its peculiar magic, making her every bit a representative figure of that decade, and its highs and lows, as Jean Seberg, Anna Karina, Tuesday Weld, Joan Baez or Jane Fonda. Women who were indominable and fierce, laying waste to anyone who thought they were just another pretty face.

It is impossible to not get lost in the cover of Faithfull’s second American album (the photo was also used for her self-titled British album, released on the same way as Come My Way) with its full portrait of her circa 1965. It suggests depth and knowingness. It comes through as well on the album’s title track, “Go Away From My World.”

Robert’s copy of Go Away From My World by Marianne Faithfull

Written by Jon Mark and produced by Mike Leander (among his other credits, he wrote the string arrangement for the Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home”), it was her seventh single and only barely charted on the Billboard Hot 100. It would be her last 45 to did so.

When Broken English was released in 1979, Faithfull had been on the decline both personally and professionally. The album gave her a much deserved career comeback. Faithfull’s voice had changed a lot in that time and a new sound accompanied it. The album wasn’t punk per se, but it had the same frantic, angst-filled energy and fit right in.

The compilation I mentioned earlier in this piece also contained “The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan”. The Shel Silverstein penned track was previously recorded by Doctor Hook & The Medicine Show in 1974. The song details the mental decline of the title character, a 37 year old bored housewife. It’s easily one of the highlights of Broken English.

Upon the singles release in 1979, David Hepworth of Smash Hits described “Lucy Jordan” with the following review:

"The Debbie Harry of the sixties returns to vinyl with an honestly outstanding offering, a version of an old Doctor Hook number related over a swimming synthesiser. If you can handle this, it sounds like Dolly Parton produced by Brian Eno. Only better."

I would agree with those words. While there were so many other tracks I could have added here (1965’s “Summer Nights”, 1981’s underrated “Sweetheart” and “So Sad”), “Lucy Jordan” felt like the best way to close this tribute off. She had a long, interesting career that left behind a solid back catalogue and will be missed.