Marianne Faithfull: Vagabond Ways

Marianne Faithfull first achieved fame as Mick Jagger's lover/protege in the '60s—a sweet-faced singer who seemed all wrong, and yet all right, to sing the heartbreaking "As Tears Go By"—before disappearing down a VH1-friendly spiral of addiction and despair in the '70s. Just when everyone had written her off, Faithfull made a stunning and deeply disturbing comeback with 1979's Broken English, which found her reborn, probably not entirely by choice, as the sort of cracked-voiced chanteuse Kurt Weill might have dreamed about. Faithfull has since continued her second career as a living symbol of decadence lost, and the new Vagabond Ways is no exception. An uneven but generally rewarding collection, Vagabond opens with the uncomfortably raw title track ("Oh, doctor, please / I drink and I take drugs / I love sex and I move around a lot / I had my first baby at 14") before bringing in Roger Waters (on bass synth) for the forgotten Pink Floyd track "Incarceration Of A Flower Child." ("It's gonna get cold / in the 1970s.") The subject may be the past, but the sound is of the moment, thanks to the production of Mark Howard and some nice writing and performing contributions by Daniel Lanois. His lovely "Marathon Kiss," featuring backing vocals by Emmylou Harris (a nice contrast to Faithfull) provides one of the album's highlights, as does Faithfull's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Tower Of Song." She's probably the only other singer (Tom Waits aside) who could pull off the irony of Cohen's "I was born with the gift of a golden voice" line, a moment that compensates for the inclusion of the dreadful Elton John/Bernie Taupin contribution "For Wanting You." Otherwise, the album makes a strong case for carrying on the strange second act of Faithfull's career.