Fabulous Friday: Marianne Faithfull
- ladiesvoices
- 54 minutes ago
- 1 min read
My brother Howard introduced me to Marianne Faithfull when she had a career resurgence in the 80s. I think he gave me a tape (remember tapes?) of her album Strange Weather. That album opens with "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." Here she is singing it live:
A perfect union of the singer and the song - - her voice actually SOUNDS LIKE the boulevard of broken dreams. A battered old concrete road that has seen a lot of traffic over the years yet still gets you where you need to go.
She was well-established in the music business by 1989. She first gained prominence as Mick Jagger's girlfriend in the Stones's heyday. "As Tears Go By" was written for her and she was the first to record it. Here she is singing it in 1965. Hard to believe this bashful English rose became such a tough broad in a mere 24 years. Life has a way of doing that. SOME lives.
I read her memoir in 2000 - - I think I might have actually BOUGHT it (remember book stores?). It was a good read, I was impressed with how frank she was about her drug use and other issues. She wasn't ashamed, she wasn't showing off, she was just telling the story of her life as it happened.
I feel like her later life was about asserting herself and stepping out of the shadow of the Stones. I witnessed something similar from Jane Birkin.
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