So Long, Marianne

A tribute to Marianne Faithfull

During the last episode of the Besides the Revolution podcast, I briefly discussed the life of Marianne Faithfull, the legendary 60s icon who sadly departed last week. I have been a long time fan of Faithfull’s work and have followed her later career with great interest. To many people, she is the Girl on the Motorcycle or the blonde beauty who sang folk songs and “As Tears Go By.” But she really is much more than that.

Faithfull was discovered at a 1964 party hosted by Roland and Delia Jaccard, a well-connected socialite couple in London’s bohemian scene. The gathering was attended by notable figures in the music and arts world, including Andrew Loog Oldham, the Rolling Stones' manager, who was actively seeking new talent.

At the party, Marianne was introduced to Oldham by John Dunbar, her then-boyfriend and future husband, who was an aspiring artist and gallerist. Dunbar was well-connected in London's art world, and the party itself was filled with musicians, artists, and intellectuals. Oldham saw potential in Faithfull, based largely on her looks. He was also looking for a female singer to rival the likes of Sandie Shaw and Cilla Black. He asked Dunbar, “can she sing?" to which Dunbar responded yes. And the rest is history.

Oldham quickly signed her to a recording contract and introduced her to songwriters Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who, along with their manager and songwriter Keith's friend Andrew Oldham, crafted the song As Tears Go By for her. They were displeased when they were first told to write the song, and the story goes that they locked themselves in a kitchen overnight, smoking and drinking, writing the song for her - and it became a hit.

Funnily enough, I met John Dunbar several years ago. I wish I had the photograph to hand to show you. He was a charming guy, and interestingly, he was also the man responsible for introducing John to Yoko. We met during a discussion in Cambridge about Yoko’s work, in a hall where John and Yoko recorded a performance that was later released as a track titled “Cambridge 1969.”

Marianne’s first single launched her career in pop and folk, but she soon became a rock and roll icon.

The girlfriend of Mick Jagger, Faithfull was exposed to the sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle. But rather than being a naive or reluctant participant, Faithfull would regularly tell stories of how she was just as into it as the men were. As she sang in her song “Sliding Through Life On Charm” with Jarvis Cocker:

To go where God knows who has gone before
I am a muse, not a mistress, not a whore
Oh, suburban shits who want some class
All queue up to kiss my ass

She regularly fought the idea that if women behave the same as men, they should be judged differently.

One of her most famous performances from this early era was during the Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus.

By the early 1970s, Faithfull had fallen from her status as the glamorous 1960s pop icon and muse of the Rolling Stones into a downward spiral of heroin addiction and homelessness.

After her high-profile romance with Mick Jagger ended in 1970, she struggled with severe drug abuse, which led to her losing custody of her son, breaking with the music industry, and ultimately living on the streets. One of the most infamous accounts of this period is that she was found sleeping rough on a wall near Soho or Chelsea in London—essentially homeless and completely unrecognisable. Some versions of the story say she was living in a squat, while others claim she was sleeping in doorways.

Some time around this time, I’m afraid I don’t know exactly when, Faithfull also attempted suicide. Her words to boyfriend Mick Jagger, upon waking in a hospital bed, were “wild horses couldn’t drag me away” - a line that inspired jagger’s song “Wild Horses.” Marianne herself never actually recorded the song, but she did sing it live once in the 90s. And it’s a real treat:

In the 70s, Faithfull had been effectively discarded by the entertainment industry, and her health had deteriorated significantly. However, in the mid-1970s, she slowly began rebuilding her career. Rich Kid Blues, an album of covers and deeply introspective songs, was recorded in 1971 but remained unreleased until 1985. The sessions captured the rawness of her situation—her voice, once angelic, had become huskier and filled with pain. Though it wasn’t officially released at the time, this period marked the beginning of Faithfull’s evolution into the artist she would later become—a singer known for her raw emotional delivery rather than the delicate folk-pop of her youth. The raw, scratchy voice that emerged in the 70s is what defined her work from later in the decade, when she released the hit “Broken English” in 1979. If you had only heard her work from the 60s and then suddenly heard Broken English, you’d think it was a different person singing. And in many ways, it was.

Above is the original, but below is a later live recording that i think is particularly great.

During her 1997 performance of Kurt Weill songs in Montreal, Faithfull recounted her life in the 60s, bragging of her drug taking and the fun she had with her friends. She recounts many stories unashamedly, though of course admits it wasn’t healthy. But what makes her so fascinating is that she never shied away from it, she didn’t pretend it didn’t happen, and she never pretended to be someone she wasn’t. Even in her old age, with a walking stick in hand, she’d appear on stage and swear, smoke cigarettes, and tell fantastic stories that only someone who lived such a varied and controversial life could.

Her song “Vagabond Ways” is probably one of the best examples of her self reflection in her work.

“Yes I guess I do have vagabond ways,” she’d sing.

I’d argue that’s her Englishness. I have never known a people so self deprecating. Legendary comic Stephen Fry once did a bit about this; he noted that the American idea of comedy is to laugh at other people, while the Brits laugh at ourselves. I do it constantly, and I’ve found myself in uncomfortable situations here in the states where my very sweet American friends tell me not to “put myself down.” But that’s the British way - and we only half mean it when we say it.

Marianne moved around throughout her life. She spent time in the States, in England, a long time in Ireland in the 90s, and later found herself in Paris. She spent much of her older years in her apartment in Paris and would regularly collaborate with Warren Ellis on fantastic albums, including 2018’s beautiful “Negative Capability” - which turned out to be her last true album. One of my favourite tracks on that album was titled “They Come At Night,” which was a sort of tribute to the people who died in the 2015 Bataclan concert hall terror attack.

The song was a collaboration with Mark Lanegan, who contributed the music. Faithfull performed "They Come at Night" at the Bataclan shortly after the attacks, while the venue was still bearing the scars of the tragedy. Sadly, she is really one of the few artists I truly love who I never got a chance to see live, so I’ve only seen the recoridng of this myself on YouTube. I wish I could share it, but it unfortunately appears to have disappeared from YouTube. But you can hear the recorded track below:

Reflecting on the experience, she remarked, "We were the first people to go there [Bataclan] and do a show – an extraordinary experience."

Faithfull's final studio album, She Walks in Beauty, was released on April 30, 2021. The unique project features Faithfull reciting 19th-century British Romantic poetry, accompanied by musical arrangements from Warren Ellis, with contributions from Brian Eno, Nick Cave, and Vincent Ségal.

At first, I was disappointed that it wasn’t a traditional album - but in recent years I have spent time listening to it and it is truly a wonderful piece of art.

The album includes readings of classic poems such as Lord Byron's "She Walks in Beauty," John Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale," and Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias." Faithfull described the work as a dream project she had envisioned for 50 years. So it’s fitting that it was her final recording.

The recording process took place in 2020, during Faithfull's recovery from a severe bout of COVID-19. Despite her health challenges, she completed the album, which was met with critical acclaim. But during its release, Faithfull said that she was unlikely to sing ever again because of the damage done to her lungs. And, my understanding is that soon after its release, she eventually returned to London where she was cared for in a home until her death.

I often wondered how she was. If people were checking in with her. If she was lonely. I expected she was. She literally sang about it.

“You might be the loneliest person in the world, but you’ll never be as lonely as me,” she sang.

I hope she wasn’t serious when she sang it, but I expect she was. Which is what eats me up. I never knew her, I never had the chance to even meet her, but I knew so much about her and followed her work with such great interest that I felt as though she did. My wife, who is an artist, is close friends with people who worked with her and one day I am looking forward to spending time with them and hearing some stories. But until then, I hope that this short piece might give some of our readers an insight into her work. I have barely scratched the surface and will perhaps record something in greater detail in the future. I would encourage anyone reading this to listen to her work and give her the love she deserves.

During her legendary “Blazing Away” concert in 1990, she tells the filmmakers that the only time she truly felt love was on stage. At the end of the show, you can see her tearing up, thanking the crowd.

“You never know. You never fucking know. And I need it. I need it sometimes,” she says, as the crowd roars.

And let me just finally this rambling piece with this: Faithfull’s cover of Danny Boy. As she says in the recording, you never really truly understand Danny Boy until you lose somebody you really, really loved.

Well, the world loved you Marianne. Dearly.