A Tribute to Marianne Faithfull
- Ashley Musante
- Jan 31
- 8 min read
There's something about the women of rock and roll, that their impact is so large and sprawling that each time we lose one, we are left thinking about every piece of music that would cease to exist without them, and how lackluster the genre would be without their inspiration, influence, style, and attitudes. Especially with losing someone like Marianne Faithfull.
Marianne was a star in her own right, a singer who emerged as one of the most popular female acts of the British Invasion. So often when it’s cataloged, there is a lack of acknowledgement towards Miss Faithfull, whose career was jump started by Stones manager Andrew Oldham in 1964. She was the first to record the Jagger/Richards penned ballad As Tears Go By, the first in a string of hits across both sides of the Atlantic. By 1966, she became a mainstay in the Stones circle, becoming friends with Brian Jones and his then-girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg. Faithfull would begin a relationship with Mick Jagger around this time, something that helped her become one of the most famous faces of the 1960s, a touchstone of the Swinging London scene during it's most fruitful time. Already being the leading female voice of the British Invasion, she became the leading female face of the counterculture scene with her ties to the rock and roll of the day.
Often, girlfriends of rockstars were expected to be arm candy for those who they were with,
a glance at how the public and The Beatles themselves interacted with their women is an example of this. While Jane Asher was a successful actress, she was expected to play second fiddle to Paul McCartney, same with Pattie Boyd and her successful modeling to George Harrison. Most times, the girlfriends were sidelined by their men, expected to be quiet,
perfect, and most importantly, presentable. Pallenberg and Faithfull flipped this script completely. Marianne never halted being a career woman while with Jagger, even while she cared for her son and followed along on all the Stones wild adventures. There are photos of Pallenberg and Faithfull at shows, clearly causing a riot from the stands as they cheered on their partners, oftentimes it felt as if they were the true celebrities, the stars that were to be watched, imitated, and beloved. It was uncommon for women to be so outwardly definant of the societal norms of the time, to dress as unconvential and masculine, to be seen so often without their partners, to explore the free love movement in an open way. Most of what Marianne and Anita did was adopted as the status quo of what a woman in rock and roll could do. They were cool - cooler than their men - and not afraid of that fact.
It was during the 1967 drug bust at Redlands that the still very unprogressive and sexist world would rear it's head once more, with the media coverage of the bust painting Marianne in an incredibly sexist and false light. There was a particular malice that was taken towards her career and no one else's. While the event marked a shift for the Stones, it was one that further labelled them as bad boys and agents of chaos for the counterculture. For Marianne, it was vitriolic slut-shaming - presenting her involvement in only explicit sexual terms that she vehemently denied and attested to being false. Her arrest in a bearskin rug was villifed as well - a judge asking why she should ever feel comfortable enough around men to bathe while they are around. While Keith Richards did all he could to fight back against the misogyny perpetrated against her, the damage was sadly already done. Despite being a well respected performer of her time, the rampant patriarchal standings of the 1960s unfortunately cut her down while her male contemporaries were allowed to continue on. The path of her career highlights something that prevails today with women in the industry, how not only must they be expected to work harder than their male counterparts, but that their flaws will always be punished much harsher. Marianne’s involvement in the Redlands bust was minimal - simply in the house when the police came - yet she was the one who took the irrecoverable fall. It was her who was lied about in the press, put in false, lewd situations purposely created to ruin her public image, and it was her whose career was tanked. Marianne spoke of this in 2012, saying of the double standard:
“It destroyed me. To be a male drug addict and to act like that is always enhancing and glamorising. A woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother.”
Pausing her career slightly after the public's horrific treatment of her, she became heavily involved in songwriting for the Stones music. She had given Jagger a copy of the book of the newly translated book The Master and Margarita, the book that became the inspiration of Sympathy for the Devil. Along with Pallenberg and Shirley Watts, Marianne features on the woo-woo's of the song. Famously, Marianne also wrote the lyric of Sister Morphine from 1971's Sticky Fingers. Having written the song in 1968, she recorded her own version of the song shortly after with Jagger as a B-Side to Something Better slated for release in early 1969, though her copy was barred from release due to the drug references through the song. The Stones would release their version in 1971, Faithfull's songwriting credit missing due to the record company not wanting to pay her manager, though this would be rectified in later years with her name being properly added next to Jagger and Richards. She inspired I Got The Blues, You Can't Always Get What You Want, and Winter, a song released well into the 1970s, years after her breakup with Jagger. The breakup transpired after years of issues, between his constant cheating and Faithfull's struggles. She suffered a misscarrige in 1968, had her custody of her son taken from her, attempted to take her life, and became an addict. She lived on the streets for most of the 1970s, a byproduct of the rock and roll machine before it became a publicized phenomenon, living in a horrible situtation and having everything taken from her while men who did the same things were gracing covers of magazines, flying in private jets, and celebrated for destroying their lives. The ravenous smear campagin against her via the media created a world where women could be utterly destroyed by nothing more than misogyny while men could get away with murder just as long as they were men, a horrible fate still seen today.
In 1979, she released the masterpiece Broken English. Widely regarded as her magnum opus, Faithfull was brought back
from the 1960s full force. Due to her substance abuse, her once high-pitched singing voice had become low and raspy, lending much more to the rock sound than ever before. The album mixed flavors of funk, new wave, and reggae into the already present rock sound creating an album unlike anything she had done before. With help of producer Mark Murdy and Steve Winwood on keyboards, the album catapulted Faithfull back into not only the public consciousness but the music world in serious contention. The album was gritty and raw - a true rock and roll star helming the piece. For all the times she was expected to sit pretty and the sidelines and didn't, she finally took a hammer to the idea of what was expected of her music. While she was barred from mentioning drugs a mere decade before, now she was now speaking of sex in an unguarded way, being as overt and disgusting about the act as every man before her. From the girl who would sit in her dresses with ribbions in her hair to sing soft covers of male-written songs, she was now here, cigarette in hand, singing the songs she wrote about whatever she wanted. She was nominated for a Grammy for the album, and it produced charting singles for her, the first time since the mid-1960s. The album allowed Marianne a chance women are so often shut out of: the chance to come back from their hard times. Oftentimes, once a woman is villainized enough via the press, she can’t come back without the whispers of her indiscretions following her. Marianne came back, more biting than ever, and pulled the stories about her back to her favor. Even if the press would still refer to her as ‘Mick Jagger’s Ex-Girlfriend’, a stupid label then and even stupider now but I digress, she had proven to people who actually listened that there was so much more to her past than that man. He may always live in her shadow, however, with her name near constantly brought up as an important figure in his early success and some of the reasoning behind some of his classic lyrics. By 1997, it was her featuring on Metallica's albums, writing her side of the story, and becoming an icon all over again just as if it was 1967 all over again.
Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg remained closely ingrained in the Stones circle long after their relationships with the band members ended. It speaks to their importance in their history, how their names are synonymous with the look, sounds, feelings of a band that they
had never been full members of. As Anita remained an integral focal point of their fashion and attitude, Marianne remained a focal point of their musical identity - someone who not only wrote hits for them, but inspired some of the most mature and thoughtful writing Jagger ever penned. When 60s Mod culture saw a big boom in the 1990s with Britpop - Marianne and Anita once more became icons of the decade. Going to parties, hanging out with Kate Moss, seeing their fashion and musical identities once more replicated by an entire generation of people who hoped to have even an ounce of their swag - that’s not something that can ever be understated. Both of these women suffered in and because of being women in the public eye, and came back stronger because of it. They will forever be tied to the important, culturally shifting impact of the counterculture in 1960s London, the reinvention of the rock and roll woman, and the pillars of coming back even if you’re beat down. As unfortante as it is that they're both now gone, it speaks to their impact that they will never be forgotten as long as rock and roll goes on. Artists have been inspired by them through the decades - Courtney Love even striking up a friendship with Marianne in the later years of her life - and that will never vacate the world even if they have. As long as The Rolling Stones are remembered, there will always be a mention of Anita Pallenberg and Marianne Faithfull, as without them there would be no Stones as we know them today.
Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg through the years
Seeing the news of Marianne sent a jolt through me. While never the Stones girl I felt the strongest towards, it felt as if a large part of legacy has gone with her. Her story is heartbreaking and her music timeless, her impact huge. It brings me great joy that she was able to tell her story through her memiors, that she was able to come back from rock bottom, and that she will be remembered for all the things people tried to strip her of in the 1960s: her songwriting, her agency, her attitude, her story. One of the coolest women of her time, and one of the most important for sure. Rest in Peace, Marianne.
"I know I can sing Sister Morphine. I wrote it. It belongs to me." - Marianne Faithfull, 1989
Marianne Faithfull performing Sister Morphine:
Wonderful tribute, my friend 🧡