News : Morrissey pays tribute to Marianne Faithfull: “She brought us all closer”

Morrissey has paid tribute to Marianne Faithfull following her death yesterday (January 30).

The iconic singer and actor’s representatives announced that she had “passed away peacefully in London” at the age of 78, “in the company of her loving family.”

A number of other artists and admirers shared tributes to Faithfull, a range of which you can find here. Mick Jagger also shared a personal message to his former partner while Metallica described her as “fearless”.

Now, Morrissey has paid his respects to her on his official website Morrissey Central.

Drawing reference to her 1965 hit ‘Come And Stay With Me’ which he said was “my very first purchased disc”, the former Smiths frontman wrote: “Marianne Faithfull, RIP. This is the evening of the day … my very first purchased disc.

“‘Come And Stay With Me’ … years later, sitting on her bed in Brussels … hearing her version of ‘Dear God, Please Help Me’ … she said ‘Lou Reed told me to cover it’ … her music brought us all closer … the girl to whom everything happened.”

He previously listed ‘Come And Stay With Me’ among his favourite songs on BBC Radio 4‘s Desert Island Discs in 2009.

Faithfull was a key figure in the ‘Swinging London’ arts and music scene in the ’60s, becoming one of the leading female artists during the British Invasion era. She is remembered for hits including ‘As Tears Go By’ and for her roles on stage and screen.

It was her association with The Rolling Stones, however, that drove her public profile to a significant extent. Having married the artist John Dunbar in 1965, with whom she had a son Nicholas, she left her husband for Jagger the following year, with whom she had a four-year relationship.

She is often considered to have been a “muse” for the band, and is thought to have inspired songs such as ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ and ‘Wild Horses’. She also co-wrote their song ‘Sister Morphine’, although she had to win the rights to be credited as a writer in a long legal battle years later.

In 2021, she spoke about how a near-fatal battle with COVID-19 had threatened to take away her ability to sing. She had been hospitalised in March 2020 and received 22 days of treatment, but said a year later that she was still feeling the effects.

A biopic of her life, titled Faithfull, has been in production since 2020 but has yet to be completed.

Elsewhere, fans have also been sharing footage from Faithfull’s final ever concert, which took place at Le Bataclan in Paris in 2016 and saw her playing a number of her best known songs, along with covers of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan.