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The legendary singer-songwriter Marianne Faithfull died Thursday at the age of 78 at her home in London. Dubbed one of the best singers of all time, Rolling Stone described Faithfull as an artist “who transcended ‘it girl’ status in the Sixties with a stunning second act as a singer-songwriter of earned hard wisdom.”
“I am so saddened to hear of the death of Marianne Faithfull,” Mick Jagger shared in a statement online following Faithfull’s death. “She was so much part of my life for so long. She was a wonderful friend, a beautiful singer and a great actress. She will always be remembered.”
Faithfull first entered the charts and kicked off her music career back in the Sixties, after recording her first hit, “As Tears Go By,” when she was only 17 years old. Decades later, Faithfull recounted the sessions for recording the cut in her 1994 memoir, Faithfull, as well as meeting the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who originally penned the song. (The Stones also cut the record in 1965.)
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‘Faithfull’ by Marianne Faithfull, David Dalton
Faithfull is available in several editions, including hardcover, paperback, and Kindle.
“This was the first song Mick and Keith had written,” Faithfull recalled in the book. “[Producer] Andrew [Loog Oldham] had locked them in the kitchen ad told them, ‘Write a song. I’ll be back in two hours.’ Andrew gave them the sense and feel of the type of thing he wanted them to write — ‘I want a song with brick walls all around it, and high windows and no sex.’ They came up with the song called ‘As Time Goes By.’ Andrew knew a lot about how songs were constructed. Although it was still in a very primitive state, he knew he could fix it. There was another problem: the tide. It was the title of a very famous song, the one Dooley Wilson sings in Casablanca, so Andrew changed it to ‘As Tears Go By.’”
Faithfull continued, “Andrew played me a demo of the tune with Mick singing and Big Jim Sullivan on acoustic guitar. He handed me a scrawled lyric sheet and I went back into the studio and did it. As soon as I heard the cor anglais playing the opening bars I knew it was going to work. After a couple of takes it was done. Andrew came down from Olympus and gave me a hug. ‘Congratulations, darling, You’ve got yourself a number six.’”
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‘As Tears Go By’ by Marianne Faithfull
In addition to “As Tears Go By,” stream more of Faithfull’s music now on Amazon, including albms like 1979’s Broken English and her 2018 LP Negative Capability.
Elsewhere in Faithfull, the songwriter also chronicled other pivotal moments throughout her life, including touring for the first time with The Hollies in the Sixties, and detailed the time she rerecorded “As Tears Go By” when she was 40.
“I still sing [‘As Tears Go By’] every night,” Faithfull told Rolling Stone in a 2014 interview. “I still think it’s a beautiful song. I’m still very grateful that Mick and Keith gave it to me and wrote it for me. I suddenly really understood it myself when I was about 40, when I realized it was another version of [poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s ballad] ‘The Lady of Shalott.’ It hit me during one of my moments of clarity, which I’ve told you seem to happen periodically. That moment of clarity was when I got clean.”
Pick up a copy of Faithfull now on Amazon.