The Guardian reports:
Marianne Faithfull, whose six-decade career marked her out as one of the UK’s most versatile and characterful singer-songwriters, has died aged 78. A spokesperson said: “It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of the singer, songwriter and actress Marianne Faithfull. “Marianne passed away peacefully in London today, in the company of her loving family. She will be dearly missed.”
With a discography that spanned classic 60s pop tunes to the prowling synthpop of Broken English and onto collaborations with Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Lou Reed and more, Faithfull was idolised by fans and fellow musicians alike, and was also celebrated across the worlds of fashion and film. On screen, she acted alongside Orson Welles, Oliver Reed, Alain Delon and Anna Karina, and played herself in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1966 film Made in the USA.
Rolling Stone reports:
Faithfull became a breakout star in 1964 with her first single, the ballad “As Tears Go By.” The beloved track would be the first song Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had written together. Although she was only 17 and her voice sounded frail and young, she sang the lyrics about feeling left out with a conviction that would guide her later work.
She continued to score hits throughout the mid Sixties, before disappearing from the spotlight in a haze of heroin addiction (trials she chronicled in the lyrics to “Sister Morphine,” which the Rolling Stones also recorded).
She reemerged in 1979 with the jaw-dropping Broken English, an album that drew musically from punk and New Wave and showcased her newfound dark, sometimes vulgar outlook.
Broken English is in my personal all-time top ten. I once had Why’d Ya Do It? on my answering machine, much to the horror of my mother. Her cover of Shel Silverstein’s Ballad Of Lucy Jordan is just heartbreaking.