Sex, drugs and Mick Jagger: Highs and lows shaped Marianne Faithfull's life

Years after Marianne Faithfull's star power had faded, she spoke with an acquaintance about an invitation to a photography exhibition in Berlin. "It's so appropriate," the friend declared, "you and Berlin have a lot in common. Armies have passed through both of you." This brutal assessment, which even shocked the usually unflappable Faithfull, accurately summarized her arduous life: one of both incredible brilliance and shocking lows.

Her glory days are well known. From 1964 to 1970, Faithfull was a pop star, a royal figure in the British rock scene. Her lows began with her drug use, eventually leading to homelessness and addiction. She described that period with a very philosophical attitude. "It was great to be lost in the streets of London, no address, no phone number. It was good for me. It was what I was meant to go through…it brought me back to being a real person." As this quote suggests, Faithfull is a woman full of surprises and contradictions.

For most people, she will forever be linked to Mick Jagger, the quintessential swinging couple of the 60s. In reality, she was obsessed with Mick's musical partner, Keith Richards, but she could not break this productive relationship. Due to her connection with the Rolling Stones, she is often remembered merely as a musician. However, her true desire early on was to become a respected actress, having played dramatic roles in Chekhov's "Three Sisters" and Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

As the 60s accelerated, Faithfull began her pop music career, packaged by her manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, as an almost virginal presence in a rapidly decaying world. If this was the public image, the private story was quite different. She married John Dunbar, who ran the Indica Gallery, and her association with his artistic circle exposed her to drugs and drug use. Marianne made it clear that she wanted to try all drugs. In time, this experience smoothly led her into the inner circle of the Rolling Stones.

Being part of the inner circle brought her greater fame, and ultimately notoriety, when police came to Keith Richards' "Redlands" home to search for drugs. When they searched the house, Faithfull was found wearing only a fur rug. It turned out that the drugs the police found in one of Mick's clothes actually belonged to Faithfull. He strategically remained silent, believing that while drug possession charges might not harm a rock star, it would certainly ruin her stage career. However, Jagger could not protect her from the British tabloids, which quickly spread a story claiming she had used a Mars bar in her love life.

Ultimately, the drug charges against the Rolling Stones had little impact, but the effects of drugs on Faithfull were real. In her autobiography, she recalled how she used drugs to prepare for the role of Ophelia. "I was afraid I was too involved in that role. Before the mad scene, I took heroin. Of course I didn't need it, but I thought it was helpful." Over time, this recklessness completely undermined her stage ambitions. In 1969, Faithfull and Jagger traveled to Australia together, where Jagger was chosen to play the lead role in the film "Ned Kelly." Shortly after the visit, she overdosed and fell into a six-day coma. She recalled it as a strange experience, claiming that while in a coma, she met former Rolling Stones member Brian Jones, who had died a month earlier.

When deciding whether to stay with Brian or return to the living, Brian kindly told her, "I have to go on alone." Faithfull regained consciousness soon after. It was a close call, and even more surprising was that just a year earlier, Faithfull had written the lyrics for an unreleased Rolling Stones song, "Sister Morphine," a terrifying story about a morphine addict lying in bed craving her next fix. Jagger never gave credit to a good idea, and he did not credit her in the song's creation, but privately gave her a royalty, which helped her survive as her world fell apart. For most of the 70s and 80s, Marianne Faithfull's life was filled with drug addiction.

As Faithfull's relationship with Jagger broke down, her life also fell apart. Her artistic ambitions gradually faded, and drugs took center stage. According to her biographer, Mark Hodkinson, by 1971 she was completely addicted to heroin. This meant she left her son in the care of her mother, Eva, and lived a nomadic life, relying on the help of others. Her situation became so dire that shopkeepers in her frequented areas would take her clothes to wash while she sat there wrapped in blankets. For most of the 70s and 80s, Faithfull's life was a battlefield filled with drug addiction, interspersed with brief bursts of artistic expression. Perhaps her greatest creative burst came with the album "Broken English."

She gathered a team of top musicians, a sympathetic producer, and a series of songs, and the album combined her best literary instincts with the vibrant energy of punk and new wave music. Two songs stood out. Neither of them were written by her, but as she would do many times later, she made them her own. The first was a mournful lament about a betrayed lover called "Why'd Ya Do It," with lyrics by poet Heathcote Williams. The second song was called "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan." Originally recorded by Dr. Hook, it was likely written for her, telling the story of a woman who had not done anything that Faithfull had done, but was somehow still torn apart by her wasted past and lost dreams.

Tormented by fate and addiction, Faithfull could very well have ended up as just another casualty of rock and roll. She refused to succumb to this temptation. Instead, she relied on her innate resilience and wisdom, as well as her ability to tell the truth, transforming from a potential victim into a wise elder... it should be said, she always maintained her sense of humor. On a recent album, "Negative Capability," she re-recorded the song "As Tears Go By." Written by Jagger and Richards, it originally propelled her into the spotlight. Gone was the ballad-like quality and the girlish voice, replaced by a woman who had seen the world, reflected on the passage of time, and breathed new meaning into the lyrics of this old song.

"It's the dusk of day, I sit and watch the children play, doing the things I used to do, and they think it's new - I sit and watch, and the tears flow..." William Blake once said that the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Apparently, Blake and Faithfull never met, but Blake's observation reminds us that with her passing, we have lost a person of great wisdom.