Track 3 from Love In A Mist (1967)

Tracks 5, 6 and 7 and from Broken English (1979)

Track 8 from Dangerous Acquaintances (1981)

Track 9 from A Child's Adventure (1983)

Track 12 from The Seven Deadly Sins (1998)

Track 16 from Easy Come, Easy Go (2008)

Marianne Faithfull had an unusual career in which she was a pop star in the '60s, with a string of top 10 hits in the UK and Hot 100 hits in America, but she's better remembered for her later work as more of a cult artist. Faithfull released several albums from 1965 to 1967, none of which are currently available on streaming services in their entirety, at least not in America. Some deep cuts from those albums are on Spotify on compilations, though, so I was able to represent that era with the first four tracks on the playlist, so you can hear what Faithfull's voice sounded like when she was younger and the kind of folk pop that she became famous with. 

Faithfull was discovered by Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote her debut single, 1964's "As Tears Go By." Faithfull was a pretty big star in her own right when she and Jagger began a relationship in 1966, and for a few years they were probably UK pop's power couple. Faithfull also co-wrote "Sister Morphine" with Jagger and Richards, and released her version a couple years before the Stones recorded it for Sticky Fingers. 

Marianne Faithfull didn't release any albums for nearly a decade after 1967, at first pivoting to acting and starring in a few films. After breaking up with Jagger in 1970, Faithfull went through a dark period, addicted to heroin and sometimes homeless. When she staged a comeback with the 1979 classic Broken English, her voice was completely different, with less range but much more character, and she'd developed into a great songwriter (she released another, less successful before that, 1976's Dreamin' My Dreams, which is also missing from Spotify). 

Faithfull also recorded a "lost album" in 1971 with several Bob Dylan covers that was to be called Masques that remained unreleased until 1985, when it was released as Rich Kid Blues. Today, Rich Kid Blues is Faithfull's most streamed album, largely because of a cover of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." I'm not sure exactly how that track became so popular, but a YouTube fan edit of it paired with clips from one of her most famous film role, 1968's The Girl on a Motorcycle, has millions of views. Faithfull also re-recorded "Baby Blue" in 2018. 

I remember seeing Marianne Faithfull for the first time in her 1968 performance of "Something Better" in the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus when the long shelved BBC special was finally released on home video in 1996. A year later, Faithfull made a somewhat surprising guest appearance on "The Memory Remains," the lead single from Metallica's Reload, which is probably her most famous song in America. 

My favorite Marianne Faithfull song, at least outside Broken English, is "Times Square," the opening track from 1985's A Child's Adventure. Carla Bozulich released a cover of it about 20 years ago that I was absolutely obsessed with it for a long time, both Faithfull and Bozulich's versions give me chills every time. That single bar in 7/8 in the verses? What a brilliant little detail. I also think Faithfull did an amazing version of Dolly Parton's most important deep cut, "Down From Dover." 

In the last few decades Faithfull remained prolific, and some major artists wrote songs for her or with her. Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan wrote the title track for Faithfull's 1987 album Strange Weather, and Waits performed the song a year later in his film Big Time. Hal Willner produced several of her later albums, and she also worked with Angelo Badalamenti ("She"), Elton John and Bernie Taupin ("For Wanting You"), Nick Cave ("Crazy Love"), Steve Earle ("Give My Love To London"), Mark Lanegan ("They Come At Night"), Warren Ellis ("To The Moon"), among many others. I was particularly delighted delighted to discover "Sliding Through Life On Charm," which was one of the last things Pulp did before they disbanded.