Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (December 29, 1946 – January 30, 2025) was an English singer and actress who achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her UK top 10 single “As Tears Go By.” She became one of the leading female artists of the British Invasion in the United States. In the 1970s, Faithfull underwent one of the most extreme and public transformations in music history. She began the decade as the “fallen” muse of the 1960s and ended it as a gravel-voiced icon of the New Wave and Punk era.
In 1970, her high-profile relationship with Mick Jagger ended. This period was marked by her losing custody of her son, Nicholas, and a subsequent suicide attempt. For much of the early-to-mid 1970s, Faithfull lived on the streets of London’s Soho district. She suffered from severe heroin addiction and anorexia nervosa, largely disappearing from the public eye except for occasional, fleeting appearances.
During these years, her once-pure, melodic soprano voice was permanently altered by heavy smoking, drug use, and severe laryngitis. It transformed into the deep, husky, and “scorched” rasp that would later define her career.
Despite her struggles, Faithfull made a few attempts to record music. In 1971, she recorded an album titled Masques (later released in 1985 as Rich Kid Blues), but it was shelved at the time due to her unstable condition. In 1976, she released Dreamin’ My Dreams, a country-influenced album. While it was mostly ignored in the UK, it became a massive hit in Ireland, reaching #1 and proving that she still had an audience.
The end of the decade saw one of the greatest “resurrection” stories in rock history. Faithfull emerged with Broken English (1979), an album that shed her 1960s pop persona entirely. It was aggressive, dark, and politically charged, blending New Wave, reggae, and rock. “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” became one of her signature tracks, capturing the middle-aged disillusionment that resonated with a new generation of listeners. The song “Why’d Ya Do It?” was so explicit and raw that it was banned in several places, but it solidified her status as an artist who refused to be censored or silenced.
Marianne Faithfull’s 1970s were effectively a bridge from being “Mick Jagger’s girlfriend” to being a formidable, self-directed artist. Here’s a collection of 30 amazing portraits of Faithfull in the 1970s:
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