Sometimes you just have to survive.
Marianne Faithfull scored her first hit in 1964 with “As Tears Go By,” at the age of 17, after being plucked from a party with nary an audition. Her various managers tried to paint her as a pop princess, a wide-eyed ingenue, an angelic, blonde-haired, butter-wouldn’t-melt waif. But if you know anything about Marianne, she’s neither shy nor innocent, and that butter would melt all over the place (she grew up dirt poor in the city of Reading, England with a single mother who was a former baroness from the von Sacher-Masoch family in Austria — yes, that von Sacher-Masoch family — and out in the country with a very eccentric, peculiar, rarely seen father). The puppet-masters wanted to keep her in the pop machine, endlessly looping, while her only desire was to free herself from the gears. She would not be the butterfly broken on the wheel.
Faithfull got out of the game and attained even greater fame — and notoriety — as one half of rock’s royal couple with Mick Jagger, hanging with the drugged out and debauched Stones while they got Satanic and messianic in the late 60’s. She would bleed and get sticky with all manner of pills and heroin before rolling along to a life on her own, descending further into darkness, out of control, out on the street, trying to find her heartbeat while a few of her friends lost theirs.
In 1979, Faithfull finally found a record label willing to take a chance on what everyone else viewed as difficult and damaged. The advent of punk allowed her to find her true inner voice — as well as a lower, raspier version of her actual voice– and spurred her on to unleash a decade’s worth of pain, rage, and hardship into the songs which made up the album Broken English, a tour de force of toughness and raw emotion. No quarter asked for, no quarter given.
The title track sounds like dangerous disco, a blade of neon slicing through the dark of night, with elements of post-punk and new wave shaping the shadows. Faithfull titled the song after a documentary about a member of a German terrorist group, but the lyrics remain opaque. They could address a former lover, or an enemy, or herself…or a member of a German terrorist group — but it’s certainly open to interpretation. The single didn’t hit the charts, but did serve to let everyone know she was still alive and kicking, a creative force to be reckoned with, a pop princess no more.
The demons still danced within her, but she now began to build the strength to battle them.
So what are you fighting for? Say it … with Marianne Faithfull.
1 2 3 o' clock 4 o' clock Rock 
I always thought there was something ‘classy’ about Marianne Faithful … hard to quantify, but she was certainly a standout artist. 🙂
Her mother, the former baroness, raised her to think of themselves as royalty, even though they struggled to pay the bills. That’s probably where some of the inborn classiness stems from. Standout, indeed!
I always liked her, being a bit of a brainless rebel myself when young. Now I’m old and still a rebel.
Her autobiography is quite enjoyable. She’s a hoot. And if you were the same kind of rebel she was then I want to hear more of your stories! 😂
Not on your life. 😂
😂😂😂
The memories flooded back with this one!
While in high school, I was a singer in a rock & roll band called “Her & Them”. Never heard of us? What a shocker! One of my faves was to do “As Tears Go By” sitting on a wood bar stool looking tres cool, at least in my delusional mind. All that was missing was a cigarette! My school mates loved us but the teachers and parents …. not so much. Never did get that recording contract. There’s just no accounting for taste, Houston.
Wonder write up and great to hear Marianne again.
I absolutely love hearing you were in a rock & roll band in high school! Pretty good name, too. And I’ll bet you did look tres cool sitting on a bar stool and singing “As Tears Go By.” Teachers, parents, and record company execs — bah! What do they know?
Had to look up the von Sacher-Masoch family — interesting! Haven’t heard much Marianne Faithfull, including this song, so I was surprised by her voice. Listened to “As Tears Go By” for comparison — wild how much her voice changed.
I don’t know why I knew that family name before this, but for some reason I did 😂.
She apparently smoked like a chimney and had laryngitis at one point (along with the constant substance abuse). It’s a wonder she didn’t lose her voice entirely.