The “Frankenstein” Rolling Stones Deep Cut That Marked the End of Marianne Faithfull and Mick Jagger’s Relationship

As one of the most famous rock ‘n’ roll muses of all time, the late Marianne Faithfull was perhaps the most qualified to say that a muse was “a s*** thing to be,” as she described it to The Guardian in 2021. Indeed, Faithfull had plenty of time to witness the good, bad, and ugly that went into being a muse for one of the most famous rock bands of all time—in this case, The Rolling Stones.

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Faithfull wasn’t just the long-time partner of Mick Jagger (and one-off lover of Keith Richards). She was also a significant creative inspiration for the band, whether through her personal writing or her sheer presence. Rolling Stones tracks famously attributed to her include “Wild Horses”, “As Tears Go By”, and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, all of which are beloved favorites in the Stones discography.

She also contributed the lyrics to “Sister Morphine”, which appears as a B-side from the 1971 Stones album, Sticky Fingers. Despite its dark subject matter, Faithfull treated the composition like her pride and joy. The subsequent treatment of her song created the first irreparable fractures between her, Mick Jagger, the rest of the band, and the music industry as a whole.

Marianne Faithfull Wanted “Sister Morphine” to Save Her From Pop Vapidity

Marianne Faithfull was a recording artist in her own right. But her appearance, soft vocal delivery, and, if we’re being honest, her gender all led to Decca Records painting her into a pop singer corner. After several years of releasing these kinds of feminine records, Faithfull grew restless. She was watching her boyfriend and his colleagues dominate the charts with their brazen, powerful rock ‘n’ roll. Meanwhile, she felt stuck in a lace-and-chiffon straitjacket that only allowed her to be sweet and docile.

“My dilemma as a pop singer had been that I felt my career was a dead end,” she admitted in her autobiography, Faithfull. “I was bogged down in the banality of the material. I had neither the resourcefulness necessary to ring changes on it nor the will needed to surmount it. My career had been a fluke, and I had run with it as best I could. All I could do was go on making slight variations on a theme that was becoming monotonous. At best, I was a curious anomaly…as a performer, I was only average.”

Around this time, Mick Jagger was wrestling with a melody to which he had no lyrics. Faithfull decided to help, writing “Sister Morphine” from her “feelings about what it might be like to be an addict.” At this point, Faithfull wasn’t yet at the worst point of her addiction. “I’d only taken smack once,” she said.

Faithfull’s idea sat on the shelf for a while. But eventually, she grew restless. She convinced Jagger to set up a recording session for her to cut “Sister Morphine”, which she released in February 1969. However, this excitement didn’t last long.

Why This Song Marked the Beginning of the End for Mick and Marianne

Just two days after Marianne Faithfull released “Sister Morphine”, Decca Records pulled the single from the shelves. There was no explanation or apology, per the singer-songwriter’s memoir. She felt that Mick Jagger hadn’t fought hard enough in protest to save her song, which deepened her disillusionment with the music industry and the people therein. Faithfull said, “‘Sister Morphine’ was my Frankenstein, my self-portrait in a dark mirror. But unlike Mary [Shelley’s], my creation wasn’t going to be allowed to see the light of day.”

“In my mind, I had painted a miniature gothic masterpiece, my celebration of death! I blamed Mick,” Faithfull wrote. “For almost a year, he fought with Decca over the lavatory album cover for Beggars Banquet. But for me, he had one meeting with Decca and left it at this. I began to lose heart. I felt that ‘Sister Morphine’ was my inner vision, and no one would ever know about it. That was the most depressed I’ve ever felt. At the moment when ‘Sister Morphine’ was taken off the shelves, our relationship began to shatter, too.”

“When [‘Sister Morphine’] came out on Sticky Fingers two years later,” she recalled, “there wasn’t one peep about it. So, perhaps it was the timing. Perhaps it was because they were men. Perhaps it was my cursed image.” And indeed, knowing what we do about the music industry, it was likely a combination of all three.

Photo by Lipman/The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Media via Getty Images