3 Songs Marianne Faithfull Wrote for Other Artists

“It doesn’t help me,” Marianne Faithfull bluntly said when asked if songwriting “helped” her. “What is this? F–king therapy?” she added. “I do not write things to help myself.”

Despite a non-remedial tie to songwriting, Faithfull still has a hand in penning a long line of her songs, straight out of her 1965 eponymous debut with ‘Time Takes Time” and co-writing her 1969 single “Sister Morphine,” with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger—later released by the Rolling Stones‘ Sticky Fingers—and “Why D’Ya Do It?,” “Witches’ Song,” and the title track of Broken English a decade later with her bandmate and longtime collaborator and co-writer Barry Reynolds.

From the ’80s through the 2010s, Faithfull wrote into her Dangerous Acquaintances, A Child’s Adventure, A Secret Life with Angelo Badalamenti, Vagabond Ways, Give My Love to London, and Negative Capability.

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More collaborations spanned projects with Roger Waters and Emmylou Harris, Metallica‘s “The Memory Remains” in 1997, and the 2005 collaborative album with Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, Before the Poison. She also co-wrote songs with Dave Stewart, Beck, Blur, and Pulp for her 2002 album Kissin’ Time, sang with Patrick Wolf on his “Magpie” in 2007, and spoke through works of British Romantic poetry on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Warren Ellis’ 2021 album She Walks in Beauty.

Along with a 60-year career of songs and writing three memoirs: Faithfull: An Autobiography (1994), Memories, Dreams & Reflections (2007), and Marianne Faithfull: A Life on Record (2014), Faithfull also co-wrote several songs for other artists. Here’s a look behind three of them.

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1. “I’ve Done It Again,” Grace Jones (1981)

Written by Marianne Faithfull and Barry Reynolds

When Grace Jones was working on her fourth album Warm Leatherette in 1980, she started collaborating with Reynolds, who contributed the song “Bulls–t” and played guitar on the album. By the time Grace Jones’ 1981 album Nightclubbing was piecing together, Reynolds returned, co-writing two tracks, “Art Groupie” (with Jones) and the closing “I’ve Done it Again” with Faithfull.

I was on the first ship to Peru
Charted all the courses like all sailors do
First to cross the Mason-Dixon line
Overseeing wetbacks for good Californian wine

And I’ve done it again, done it again, done it again
And I’ve done it again, done it again, done it again

I was there when Jenny Lind first sang
First to feel the cold Alaskan white man
First to take a trip on sled
First to vote for Roosevelt back in ’33

Reynolds later went on to co-write “I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango)” for Jones, along with the B-side of her 1982 album Living My Life album, and “Well Well Well” from her 2008 album Hurricane.

2.-3. “Irony” and “Over Here (No Time for Justice),” Barry Reynolds (1982)

Written by Marianne Faithfull and Barry Reynolds

Before joining Marianne Faithfull’s band in 1976, Barry Reynolds was in several bands including Pacific Drift, which released one album in 1970, and Blodwyn Pig with Jethro Tull‘s Mick Abrahams, before releasing his first single “Outsiders Point of View” in ’74.

In 1982, Reynolds also released his first and only solo album I Scare Myself, featuring two songs co-written by Faithfull: “Irony” and the anthemic “Over Here (No Time for Justice).”

Over here I’ll damage them
Before they damage me
Over here commit them all
They’ll never be believed
No right for justice
No right for peace
No right for justice
No right for peace
Over here, we’re standing clear
My voice gives me away
Over here, we’re running wild
Whatever games we play
No time for justice
No time for peace
No time for justice
No time for peace

In 2022, Reynolds recalled first connecting to Faithfull in the ’70s through a friend in Fleetwood Mac. “I really wasn’t interested, because the only thing I knew about Marianne was that she was Jagger’s girlfriend,” said Reynolds. “She was incredibly beautiful, but I thought ‘As Tears Go By’ was a weak song and it wasn’t the music that I liked at all. I went down to the rehearsal and I met Marianne and we instantly became friends.”

At this time, said Reynolds, Faithfull wasn’t considered a songwriter. “She did write the lyrics to ‘Sister Morphine,’ but she was never credited for it,” added Reynolds. “I remember saying ‘We should really sit down and write something,’ and we wrote two songs. There was a very risqué poem written by a friend of ours (Heathcote Williams) called ‘Why D’Ya Do It’, and I put the music towards it and Marianne kind of rapped it.”

Reynolds was a key songwriting partner for Faithfull through her 1983 album A Child’s Adventure and returned to her side again 16 years later for Vagabond Ways.

Photo: Marianne Faithfull at the Bottom Line, New York, Nov. 30, 1987. (Rita Barros/Getty Images)