The Ballad of Lucy Jordan - Marianne Faithfull

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0NxhFn0szc

It's curious, that while the UK had its fair share of female pop stars in the 1960's and 70's, including Petula Clarke, Cilla Black, Lulu, Sandie Shaw, Dusty Springfield and so on, none of them managed to achieve the creative independence of their US counterparts like Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Carly Simon, Melanie, Janis Ian, Janis Joplin and so on. With the possible exception of Dusty Springfield. And, compared to the states, even fewer of them were singer songwriters.

While it is impossible to conclusively identify any specific reason for this, there are more than a few contenders: besides the notoriously sexist nature of the music industry - which begs the question as to whether this state of affairs is so much worse in the UK than in the USA - there is the the sheer size of the US market which gives more opportunities for larger local exposure. plus the larger volume of the folk music market which provides the launch pad for many women ie one woman and a guitar.

Perhaps the one British female performer who threatened to rise to the solo stature of her American counterparts was Marianne Faithfull. And maybe, eventually, she did. In the years following the infamous police drug raid on the Sussex home of Keith Richards, where she was discovered clad only in a fur rug, her reputation never recovered. As she later reflected, the incident seemed to enhance the public's perception of Jagger and Richards as men, while it ruined hers as a woman and was a major factor in her subsequent descent into drug abuse, alcoholism and homelessness. Faithfull herself never blamed anyone else for her problems of the early seventies, saying in a BBC interview that she she was quite happy being "on the hook" (as opposed to being "let off the hook" for her behaviour because of how she was treated or exploited) claiming the responsibility for her hard times as her own.

In 1976 she made a comeback album "Dreamin' My Dreams", her voice prematurely low and husky due to her lifestyle - in particular her relentless smoking. In November 1979 she released her critically acclaimed album "Broken English", which firmly established her reborn image as a survivor, and became renowned for her moving live performances of great intensity. Since then she released a further 14 albums, the last, in 2021, a collection of classic poems read by her to music composed by Warren Ellis.

Throughout these recordings, Faithfull presents an unapologetic, defiant persona, constantly challenging perceptions of women as the pretty faces of pop or as merely the muses for male performers. As such, she became a feminist exemplar, always pushing the boundaries of how women sing, and what they sing about.

The most famous track from "Broken English" is "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan", a song about a suburban housewife who dreams of the romantic life she'd never had until she finally has a breakdown and is escorted from her rooftop, probably to an institution of some sort.

The original version of this Shel Silverstein song was by the underrated Dr Hook and the Medicine Show, who do a decent job of sympathetically recounting the tragic tale. In the hands of Marianne Faithfull however, the story comes alive, in that it seems to be narrated by Lucy herself. The battered voice, the empathetic emphasis she painfully invests in every phrase implies she has experienced it herself, has learnt the hard way. It's no wonder it made the soundtracks of "Thelma and Louise" and the subversive "Montenegro".

Ironically, the story of Lucy Jordan is the opposite of Marianne Faithfull's, the one having traded her dreams of romance for a tedious reality, the other achieving all the romance one could hope for at an early age, even to the extend of, in all probability, riding

"....through Paris in a sports car

with the warm wind in her hair...."

before it turned sour.

Stevie Windwood's perfect, nervy synthesiser, a backdrop of edgy tension about to burst at any moment, sets off the tired precision of Faithfull's vocal, which seems close to cracking on every fourth of fifth word: "eyes", the second "white", "town", "lovers"....and so on:

"The morning sun touched lightly on

the eyes of Lucy Jordan

in a white suburban bedroom

in a white suburban town

as she lay there 'neath the covers

dreaming of a thousand lovers

'till the world turned to orange

and the room went spinning round.

At the age of thirty-seven

she realised she'd never

ride through Paris in a sports car

with the warm wind in her hair.

So she let the phone keep ringing

and she sat there softly singing

little nursery rhymes she'd memorised

in her daddy's easy chair.

Her husband, he's off to work

and the kids are off to school

and there were, oh, so many ways

for her to spend the day.

She could clean the house for hours

or rearrange the flowers

or run naked through the shady street,

screaming all the way.

At the age of thirty-seven

she realised she'd never

ride through Paris in a sports car

with the warm wind in her hair

so she let the phone keep ringing

as she sat there softly singing

pretty nursery rhymes she'd memorised

in her daddy's easy chair.

The evening sun touched gently on

the eyes of Lucy Jordan

on the rooftop where she climbed

when all the laughter grew too loud

and she bowed and curtsied to the man

who reached and offered her his hand

and he led her down to the long white car

that waited past the crowd.

At the age of thirty-seven

she knew she'd found forever

as she rode along through Paris

with the warm wind in her hair."

This is a song that gets under your skin and stays there. Like Marianne Faithfull herself.