Sister Morphine - Marianne Faithfull
- unclestylus
- Sep 26
- 3 min read
One day I will do a series of posts on the greatest "B sides" of singles. Marianne Faithfull''s "Sister Morphine" would definitely be one of them - although it now can't be as I'm writing a post on it here.
When the song was first released in the UK as the "B" side to the Faithfull flop "Something Better in 1969, Marianne Faithfull was credited as songwriter along with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, but only the two Stones were credited on the US single release. This looks less like an oversight when, in 1971, her name was again left off the credits when the song was included on the Rolling Stones' "Sticky Fingers", a costly oversight for Faithfull as the album was number one on the LP charts on at least 8 countries including the UK and the US. It has been suggested that as she was on heroin by 1971, her addiction plummeting her into a life of desperate homelessness in London, that this was for her own good, but it wasn't until 1994 that, after protracted court proceedings, she was able to receive her royalties from that point on, though not for the preceding 22 years.
Ironically, Marianne Faithfull always maintained that at the time of the tune's composition she hadn't taken heroin, an example of a song prefiguring the future.
Jagger claimed the song wasn't about drug culture but about someone in hospital after a car accident.
Which is as believable as Roger McGuinn claiming "Eight Miles High" is about a flight in an aeroplane and "Mr Tambourine Man" is a street song-and-dance man.
However, in Jagger's defence, it has some resonances for me from the time I broke my leg playing rugby in my early twenties. The fracture - fib and tib - was so painful that they gave me morphine which resulted in one of the best light shows I've ever seen, in the darkness of my hospital night ward.
A year later, having returned to the rugby pitch too soon, I rebroke both bones in the same place and wound up, once again, in Epsom and Ewell Hospital. This time, although the break was supposedly much worse, I felt almost no pain. In the bed next to me was a young guy called Peter who'd been hit by a car and broken both legs. He was in agony, crying and begging for morphine or any other painkiller, but the nurses refused him, citing my case as much worse and saying he should be brave like me. The more I said I had no pain, the braver they said I was, which just goes to show how relative pain is. I still feel bad about him.
It's a great song which I'm sure would have been a much bigger hit than the "A" side, with a classic backing line-up featuring the great Ry Cooder excelling on slide guitar, as well as Jagger on acoustic guitar, Charlie Watts on drums and Jack Nitzsche on piano.
Faithfull's version of the song is the best, her earnest but measured morbidity combining with Cooder's guitar to create a sense of redemption that's so uplifting you want to sing along. Give it a try, it works:
"Here I lie in my hospital bed.
Tell me, Sister Morphine, when are you coming round again?
Oh, and I don't think I can wait that long.
Oh, you see that my pain is so strong
All the other patients
say they've never seen a man with such pain
Tell me, Sister Morphine
When are you coming round again?
Oh I don't think I can wait that long.
Oh you see that I'm not that strong
The scream of the ambulance is sounding in my ears.
Tell me Sister Morphine, how long have I been lying here?
What am I doing in this place?
Why does the doctor have no face?
Oh, I can't crawl across the floor.
Can't you see, Sister Morphine, I'm just trying to score?
Well, it just goes to show, things are not what they seem.
Please, Sister Morphine, turn my nightmares into dreams.
Oh, can't you see I'm fading fast?
and that this shot will be the last?
Please, Cousin Codeine, lay your cool hands on my head.
Hey Sister Morphine, you better make up my bed
'cause you know, and I know, in the morning I'll be dead
and you can sit around, and you can watch
the clean white sheets stain red."