Observations placeholder
Faithfull, Marianne - As Tears Go By (1987)
Identifier
021894
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Marianne Faithfull's 'As Tears Go By' from 1987 album 'Strange Weather'.
In 1987, Faithfull reinvented herself as a jazz and blues singer, on Strange Weather, produced by Hal Willner. The album became her most critically lauded album of the decade. The album of covers was produced by Hal Willner after the two had spent numerous weekends listening to hundreds of songs from the annals of 20th-century music. They chose to record such diverse tracks as Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It with Mine" and "Yesterdays", written by Broadway composers Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach. The work also includes tunes first made notable by such blues luminaries as Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith; Tom Waits wrote the title track.
Coming full circle, the renewed Faithfull cut another recording of "As Tears Go By" for Strange Weather, this time in a tighter, more gravelly voice. The singer confessed to a lingering irritation with her first hit. "I always childishly thought that was where my problems started, with that damn song," she told Jay Cocks in Time magazine, but she came to terms with it as well as with her past. In a 1987 interview with Rory O'Connor of Vogue, Faithfull declared, "forty is the age to sing it, not seventeen."
A description of the experience
Marianne Faithfull - As Tears Go By (1987)
It is the evening of the day
I sit and watch the children play
Smiling faces I can see
But not for me
I sit and watch as tears go by
My riches can't buy everything
I want to hear the children sing
All I hear is the sound
Of rain falling on the ground
I sit and watch as tears go by
It is the evening of the day
I sit and watch the children play
Doing things I used to do
They think are new
I sit and watch as tears go by
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm
Songwriters
ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM, KEITH RICHARDS, MICK JAGGER