I bought Broken English for the title song, which broke big on WLIR-Radio in 1979 but "Why'd Ya Do It?" the final cut, still remains burned in my memory nearly 50 years later. If my mother had been alive to hear it, she would have claimed Marianne Faithfull proved "women could be dirtier than men," a charge she also leveled at Jacqueline Susann. The song resonated acutely at the time; I was in love with David, a "roommate" who cheated on me all the time, so I spat out my jealous rage in frequent turntable sing-alongs with Faithfull while vacuuming. Her commandeering of a poem by Heathcote Williams is as shocking today as it was then.
But there was more than anger in her smoke-ravaged voice. I was old enough to recall Faithfull's treacly version of boyfriend Mick Jagger's song, "As Tears Go By," from the Swingin' Sixties. On Broken English, she sounded NOTHING like that former convent girl, a kind of Twiggy with curves and a Hapsburg dynasty pedigree. Even without the internet, you sensed that she'd come out on the other side of something terrible which apparently included heroin addiction (no surprise given her association with the Rolling Stones), divorce, miscarriage and living on the streets.
In other words, Faithfull was ripe for making a comeback, one of my generation's first: the punk Judy Garland, if you will. Over a series of LPs she collaborated with a new generation of musicians, including Beck and Billy Corgan on this side of the pond, and even Angelo Badalamenti on a lushly orchestrated album. Eventually, Faithfull morphed into a world-weary chanteuse with impeccable taste in music. Her show at Irving Plaza in 2002 included "Song for Nico," a tribute to another pretty blond with a taste for smack that she co-wrote with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics. It's by far my favorite of her later works.
Yesterday is goneThere's just todayNo tomorrow
Speaking of women with a taste for smack, let's not forget Anita Pallenberg, Faithfull's gal pal (or frenemy, given her affair with Mick during the filming of Performance?), the subject of a terrific documentary that includes home-movie footage of the two of them crossing the Atlantic in a freighter with the Glimmer Twins. If you believe the producer (Anita's son with Keith Richards) his mother, not Marianne the was the muse for "You Can't Always Get What You Want," and "Sister Morphine," although Faithfull did finally earn a long-disputed writing credit on the latter.
No matter the truth, Faithfull's comeback is testament to the impact that cleaning-up for good eventually had on her life. Unlike Nico or Pallenberg, eight and four years older respectively, she managed to survive sex, drugs and rock 'n roll and enjoyed a second-act that lasted four decades.
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