Top 10 Marianne Faithfull Songs

Photo: Photographer: A. Vente, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nl/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons

Marianne Gabriel Faithfull was born in Hampstead, London, in 1946. She began her singing career in 1964 as a folk performer. Her first big break came while attending a party in London that year, where The Rolling Stones’ manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, discovered her. Oldham, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards wrote Faithfull’s first major release, “As Tears Go By,” which became a massive success. After releasing several successful singles, she entered a highly publicized relationship with Mick Jagger.

Marianne Faithfull’s life and career worsened after her relationship with Mick Jagger ended in 1970. After losing custody of her son, she became a heroin addict and spent two years living on the streets. She also struggled with anorexia. Despite attempts by friends and peers to help her, Faithfull continued to suffer from addiction throughout much of the next decade, spending most of it in obscurity. Her drug use and heavy smoking altered the sound of her voice, which became much deeper and more cracked. Although she released her first album of new material in a decade with the country album Dreamin’ My Dreams in 1976, it wasn’t until 1979 that she achieved a career comeback with Broken English. This album saw her embracing the contemporary sounds of the punk and new wave movements, and it remains widely considered Marianne Faithfull’s definitive release.

As Marianne Faithfull entered the 1980s, her career may have been revived, but she continued to struggle with personal challenges, including ongoing battles with addiction. She released several more albums throughout the decade, including the long-shelved Rich Kid Blues in 1985, an album recorded in 1971. In 1987, after finally getting clean, she released the album Strange Weather, for which she did not write any of the material. Despite this, it became her most critically acclaimed album of the decade.

In the decades that followed, Marianne Faithfull continued to record and perform and remained an influential and widely respected artist. She died peacefully in London on January 30, 2025, at the age of 78. Her final recordings were released later that year on the four-song EP Burning Moonlight. This article looks to showcase a sampling of her recordings.

# 10 – Come My Way – Come My Way

Opening our list of the Top 10 Marianne Faithfull Songs is “Come My Way,” the title track from Faithfull’s 1965 folk album Come My Way. Released the same day as her self-titled pop album, Marianne Faithfull, the record reflected Faithfull’s insistence on recording the folk material she had been performing before she was signed. Come My Way was produced and arranged by guitarist Jon Mark, who also wrote the title song. Its spare acoustic setting and pastoral lyric give Faithfull’s youthful voice plenty of room, making the track an early example of the folk side of her musical identity.

# 9 – So Sad – Dangerous Acquaintances

“So Sad,” from Marianne Faithfull’s 1981 album Dangerous Acquaintances, captures the more restrained emotional tone of the record after the harder edge of Broken English. Produced by Mark Miller Mundy, the album featured Barry Reynolds on guitar, Steve York on bass, and Terry Stannard on drums. “So Sad” moves through images of fear, rain, distance, and reunion, with the understated arrangement leaving Faithfull’s roughened voice at the center of the performance.

# 8 – Summer Nights – Go Away from My World

Released in 1965, “Summer Nights” was one of Marianne Faithfull’s early pop hits, reaching number ten on the UK Singles Chart. Written by Liza Strike and Brian Henderson, the song pairs a bright romantic lyric about cafés, moonlight, and walks by the bay with the slight melancholy that often colored Faithfull’s early records. The original single version was included on the U.S. album Go Away from My World, where its light folk-pop arrangement fits comfortably alongside her other mid-1960s recordings.

# 7 – It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue – Rich Kid Blues

Marianne Faithfull recorded Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” in 1971 during sessions at Trident Studios with producer Mike Leander for an album originally planned as Masques. The project was shelved, and the recording did not appear commercially until Rich Kid Blues was issued in 1985. Faithfull’s spare, fragile reading gives Dylan’s farewell song a weary intimacy that fits the transitional period between her 1960s work and the harder-edged voice that emerged later. She returned to the song in 2018, recording a new version for Negative Capability.

# 6 – The Gypsy Faerie Queen feat. Nick Cave

We thought it would be special to share one of her more recent recordings. “The Gypsy Faerie Queen,” featuring Nick Cave, appeared on Faithfull’s 2018 album Negative Capability. Co-written by Faithfull and Cave, the song draws on the world of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream while exploring age, memory, nature, and the border between reality and myth. Faithfull’s weathered voice and Cave’s presence give the track the dark folk atmosphere that makes it one of the album’s most memorable collaborations.

# 5 – Is This What I Get for Loving You? – Loveinamist

“Is This What I Get for Loving You?” holds a special place in Marianne Faithfull’s catalog as her final UK-charting single of the 1960s. Written by Gerry Goffin, Carole King, and Phil Spector and released in 1967, the recording reached number forty-three on the UK Singles Chart. Its dramatic orchestral pop setting gives Faithfull plenty of room to bring vulnerability to a lyric centered on betrayal and heartbreak, making the song one of the stronger examples of her late-Decca pop period.

# 4 – Something Better

“Something Better,” written by Gerry Goffin and Barry Mann, was recorded in 1968 and released as a Decca single in 1969 with “Sister Morphine” on the other side. Produced by Mick Jagger and arranged by Jack Nitzsche, the song combines Faithfull’s fragile vocal with an orchestral setting that suits its restless lyric about wanting more from life. Faithfull also performed “Something Better” for The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, taped in December 1968, and the single was released in connection with the 1969 compilation The World of Marianne Faithfull.

# 3 – As Tears Go By – Marianne Faithfull

“As Tears Go By” launched Marianne Faithfull’s recording career in 1964 and remains one of her signature songs. Written by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Andrew Loog Oldham, the single reached number nine on the UK Singles Chart. Faithfull was only seventeen when the record was released, and the contrast between her clear, youthful voice and the song’s melancholy lyric gave the performance an unusual emotional weight. The track later appeared on her self-titled 1965 album and became a song she would revisit at different stages of her career.

# 2 – Come and Stay with Me – Marianne Faithfull

“Come and Stay with Me,” written by Jackie DeShannon, became one of Marianne Faithfull’s biggest early hits in 1965. The single climbed to number four on the UK Singles Chart and was included on her self-titled debut album. Its folk-pop arrangement gives Faithfull’s voice a clear, uncluttered setting, while the lyric’s direct plea for commitment lets her balance vulnerability with confidence. The record helped establish that Faithfull was more than the singer of “As Tears Go By” and remains one of the defining songs from the first phase of her career.

# 1 – The Ballad of Lucy Jordan – Broken English

Closing our list of the Top 10 Marianne Faithfull Songs is “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan,” from her 1979 comeback album Broken English. Written by Shel Silverstein and first recorded by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show in 1974, the song tells the story of a suburban woman confronting the life she never lived. Mark Miller Mundy’s atmospheric production and Faithfull’s deep, fractured voice turn the lyric into something far more unsettling than a conventional story song. Faithfull’s version reached number forty-eight on the UK Singles Chart and became one of the recordings most closely associated with her late-1970s reinvention.