In August 2025, Marianne Faithfull’s complete UK Decca catalogue will be re-issued on LP, CD and streaming. Before her passing on 30th January this year, Marianne completed work on two projects that were to commemorate her 60th anniversary in music; the first was her final EP Burning Moonlight, a collection of four songs inspired by her Decca recordings, the second was her contribution to this series of reissues where she talked in-depth about her Decca recording career for the first time.
All four of Marianne’s original Decca albums Marianne Faithfull, Come My Way, North Country Maid and Loveinamist are being reissued on vinyl alongside Cast Your Fate To The Wind: a new double LP of the collected singles, B-sides and rarities. Simultaneously a 6 CD boxset will be released called Cast Your Fate To The Wind: The Complete UK Decca Recordings which features all the albums reproduced on miniature facsimile LPs, a new double album of the singles, B-sides and rarities, five art cards and a 76 page book featuring many rare and unpublished photographs. Three of the original albums are appearing on vinyl for the first time since they were released, and the artwork on all four original LPs has been recreated where possible from the original images giving a high-quality finish to this set of reissues. The music has been remastered from the original tapes by Grammy nominated producer Andrew Batt . He also contributes a full-scale reassessment of the Decca recordings in his in-depth sleevenotes included in each LP and the CD Boxset. In these Marianne comments on the source of the songs and her role in the recordings, conclusively debunking the received wisdom that in this phase of her recording career she was little more than a record label puppet.
An overview of the recordings:
Having been spotted by the impresario Andrew Loog Oldham, Marianne’s recording career began in June 1964 with the release of her debut single ‘As Tears Go By’. Its melancholy reflection would set the tone for many of her subsequent recordings and in the wake of the singles success Decca wanted to consolidate her position with a pop LP. However, in an early show of artistic strength Marianne resolved to record an album based on the folk songs she had been performing in local clubs before she was signed. Decca agreed, on the proviso she delivered the pop album too, and so it came to be that Marianne had two debut albums released on the same day in April 1965: an unprecedented move for a largely untested artist.
Marianne’s folk debut Come My Way contained some standout recordings, including the title track written with the guitarist, producer and arranger Jon Mark who would become one of the most important figures in Marianne’s early career. He not only played on all Marianne’s Decca albums but also accompanied her onstage and at TV appearances. Other highlights include her interpretation of the traditional songs ‘Once I Had A Sweetheart’ and ‘Fare Thee Well’ the latter more than a match for Joan Baez’s original recording. The album was a personal collection in more ways than one, as songs like her spoken word recitation of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwock’ and ‘Full Fathom Five’ from Shakespeare’s The Tempest came out of her work with the Prospect Theatre, a local theatrical group that she performed with before her recording career.
Marianne’s eponymous pop LP was produced by Mike Leander, one of the key musical forces behind the 60s pop scene, and along with Jon Mark, the key person behind Marianne’s early work. He was instrumental in creating her signature folk-pop style and would go on to produce almost all of her Decca recordings. The album was roughly divided between cover versions and songs written specifically for her including another of her biggest 60’s hits, ‘Come And Stay With Me’ by Jackie DeShannon. Featuring Jimmy Page, the song remained a personal favourite from the period and aside from her debut single, it was the only one of Marianne’s early hits that she performed on subsequent tours. Although pop in sound, several of the standout tracks on the album were actually selected by Marianne from her collection of folk records including ‘What Have They Done To The Rain?’ and ‘Plaisir d’amour’ which became a favourite encore.
Marianne released two folk albums in the 60’s and it is not generally understood that they were conceived as a pair; where Come My Way, had been largely compiled from music of the American folk revival, her second, released in April 1966 was built around songs from the British Isles. Rightly hailed as her finest LP of the 60s, North Country Maid’s contribution to the folk revival has never been fully recognised, as many of its songs were not yet the established folk standards they would soon become. Featuring emotive interpretations of Cyril Tawney’s ‘Sally Free And Easy’ and Ewan MacColl’s ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, the album also included the traditional ‘She Moved Thru’ The Fair’, which is one of the few songs Marianne performed throughout her life. Having first sung it on the local folk circuit in Reading before her pop career began, it remained a favourite encore and also appears on her final E.P. Burning Moonlight.
For her last Decca long player, Marianne returned to the pop scene. Released in March 1967, Loveinamist was a hybrid comprised of earlier hit singles ‘Yesterday’ and ‘This Little Bird’ alongside new recordings in the folk-pop style that defined her signature sound. Loveinamist featured a clutch of impressive interpretations from the songwriters that suited her best, including a stoic ‘Reason To Believe’ by Tim Hardin, gorgeous folk-pop ballad ‘With You In Mind’ by Jackie DeShannon, and the baroque psychedelia of Donovan’s ‘In The Night Time’.
The x2 LP compilation Cast Your Fate To The Wind groups together all the singles, B-sides and rarities released in the UK alongside four previously unreleased recordings. These include ‘A Strange World’, the pop track earmarked by her discoverer Andrew Loog Oldham as the follow up to ‘As Tears Go By’ but abandoned in favour of Marianne’s choice of Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ (also included), a haunting acapella version of ‘She Moved Thru The Fair’, an outtake from the Loveinamist sessions that gives this set its title, and an alternative version of Donovan’s trippy ‘Good Guy’. The album also includes a couple of Marianne’s first compositions ‘Oh Look Around You’ and ‘I’d Like To Dial Your Number’ which appeared on the B-sides of her singles alongside more well-known tracks like her only UK EP Go Away From My World, and the singles ‘Summer Nights’ (which would become one of Marianne’s biggest hits of the 60s), ‘Tomorrow’s Calling’ and her superlative cover of The Ronettes’ ‘Is This What I Get For Loving You?’ The collection closes with her final Decca release ‘Something Better’ which signified the end of an era in more ways than one, even though it was the self-penned lyrics to the B-side, ‘Sister Morphine’, that became her defining artistic statement, and one that eventually led Marianne to her next musical quantum leap.
Marianne’s furious resurfacing in the late 70s with Broken English completely superseded her earlier artistic achievements, and for a time she felt the need to distance herself both personally and artistically from her earlier incarnation. Inadvertently this led to one of the biggest misconceptions about the early stage of Marianne’s career, namely that she was not creatively involved in her 60s releases, or that these recordings did not have the same artistic consideration behind them as her later music. She was at pains to correct that impression on these reissues; “I think I did express a lot in my early work, what people hear with the jump between these recordings and Broken English is just experience; life happened, but for me it’s all been connected. The music changed, my voice changed, but my approach to making records has always been the same: I’ve always known what I was doing.” 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of the release of Marianne’s two debut albums and in the months before her passing, she reflected on this early part of her career with renewed appreciation: “I don’t think people realise how much care and real consideration we put into this early material. It took a long time for me to appreciate it, but now I do and I’m really proud of what we did, and I hope you all like it as much as I do.”
