Surprisingly, Faithfull’s top Dylan pick didn’t come from the sunglasses-clad, just-gone-electric Dylan that she saw rise to musical stardom in real time. Rather, she selected a late 1990s offering: “Love Sick” from Dylan’s 30th studio album, Time Out of Mind.
Describing herself as a “rush out and buy Bob kind of person,” Faithfull said she was a fan of the whole record but that “Love Sick” stood out among the rest, even if she didn’t know the real title.
“For the longest time, I thought it was called, ‘I’m Sick of Love’, because that’s what he sings. But being love-sick and being sick of love are two entirely different things.
And yet, obviously, the same to an old romantic like Mr. D. And that is such a brilliant writer’s thing to do. Love is hard for all of us, but it’s very, very hard for an artist.” And if anyone would know, it’d be Faithful.
As Marianne Faithfull herself told The Guardian in 2021, “A muse? That’s a s*** thing to be. It’s a terrible job. You don’t get any male muses, do you? Can you think of one? No.”
And indeed, Faithfull’s time with The Rolling Stones was hardly a rock ‘n’ roll daydream. While she played a role in writing “Sympathy for the Devil”, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, and “Wild Horses”, her public relationship with Mick Jagger was tumultuous. Addiction took over Faithfull’s life. She had career setbacks, health issues, and virtually a fraction of the fame and success that her musical counterparts had, even with successful singles under her belt. (A.S.)
Joan Baez and Marianne Faithfull Sing in Bob Dylan’s Room
Joan Baez and Marianne Faithfull Sing ‘As Tears Go By’ in Bob Dylan’s Hotel Room. The priceless outtake from ‘Don’t Look Back’ shows the two icons covering the Rolling Stones as Dylan hammers away at a typewriter.
Filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker tagged along with Bob Dylan for his U.K. tour in April and May 1965 and shot fly-on-the-wall footage. Ninety-six minutes wound up in his 1967 film Don’t Look Back, but that was just a fraction of what he shot. He shared priceless outtakes in his 2007 film 65 Revisited and even more in 2015 on a Criterion Collection DVD set. (Rolling Stone)
One of the highlights from the DVD was previously unseen footage of Joan Baez and Marianne Faithfull singing “As Tears Go By” in Dylan’s hotel room. Faithfull released the Rolling Stones cover as her debut single the previous year and it became a hit all over the world. As you can see from this clip that was recently posted to YouTube, Dylan pays almost no attention to the song and instead hammers away on a typewriter and converses with manager Albert Grossman.
