“It’s the voice you hear when all the bars have closed, the whores have gone home and you’re out of cigarettes.” David Bowman on Marianne Faithfull, Salon.

I’ll always be eternally grateful to Marianne Faithfull for her 1979 comeback album, Broken English.  As a hardcore punk rocker, nothing could convince me that there was power in subtlety . . . until Broken English.  Saying she wanted the album to sound great on an expensive German stereo, Broken English is a minimalist study in seething, percolating anger, focusing on both sexual and social politics in a voice that Faithfull describes as showing signs of every whiskey and cigarette she’d ever consumed.  More famous for her relationship with Mick Jagger and surviving heroin addiction and homelessness, who knew that Faithfull was capable of delivering the album that would be one of post-punk’s defining moments.  But 30 years down the road, is Faithfull still capable of recording relevant punk rock for grownups on her latest album, Easy Come Easy Go?

Firmly established as a first-rate interpreter of songs,  the 62-year old Faithfull confronts the danger of coming off like Rod Stewart or Barry Manilow in their recent treacly minings of the American songbook.  But Faithfull is no fool; she chooses wisely and collaborates with even more sagacity.  Producer Hal Wilner and guitarist Barry Reynolds are still with her, but also on board are guitarist Marc Ribot, along with Cat Power, Nick Cave, Antony Hegarty, Rufus Wainwright, Sean Lennon, and Jarvis Cocker.  Song choices are brilliant and diverse: Dolly Parton’s “Down from Dover,” The Decemberists’ “The Crane Wife 3,” Smokey Robinson’s “Ooh Baby Baby,” and Judee Sill’s “The Phoenix,” just to scratch the surface of the eclecticism here.  Faithfull’s voice is in fine form and her collaborators complement her perfectly.  Wilner wisely keeps Faithfull’s voice prominently out front so the listener never loses sight that this is a solo album, not a cavalcade of sycophants worshipping at the grand dame’s bosom while simultaneously trying to bite off a piece of the spotlight for themselves.  Highlights are “Ooh Baby Baby,” a duet with Antony Hegarty (of Antony & the Johnsons) that transforms Smokey’s smooth slow-jam classic into a baroque barroom reverie; and Morrissey’s “Dear God Please Help Me,” in which a song written and sung by a gay man becomes something entirely different when transformed by a middle-aged world-weary woman.  Also noteworthy: Bessie Smith’s “Easy Come Easy Go,” The Decemberists’ “The Crane Wife 3,” and Randy Newman’s “In Germany Before the War.”

Faithfull’s and Wilner’s song choices are impeccable and there really are no throwaway tracks on Easy Come Easy Go.  I do, however, have one major criticism that has nothing to do with Marianne Faithfull but has everything to do with Decca, her label.  In Europe, the album was released as an 18 song two-cd set; for its American release it was pared down to one cd.  This is a thoughtless oversight; all 18 tracks work together as a song cycle.  Decca chose to stick with the slicker, “safer” songs, omitting more challenging tracks like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s “Salvation” and Peggy Lee’s “Black Coffee.”  However, all 18 tracks work together to weave a narrative about a soul waiting in vain for epiphany and salvation.  I highly recommend seeking out the 2-cd version (it also includes a dvd on the making of the album narrated by Faithfull and Wilner).

While there isn’t anything on Easy Come Easy Go that will bring you to your knees like the emotional terrorism of “Why D’ya Do It?” or the profound sadness of the chronically defeated in the blues standard “Trouble in Mind,” Marianne Faithfull still delivers a powerful statement in her latest collection of songs.

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