Marianne Faithfull

That's Marianne Faithfull, who passed away yesterday, performing her breakout hit "As Tears Go By" in Jean-Luc Godard's 1966 film Made in U.S.A. Typical for Godard in the period, he places a singer in an unusual context to illustrate how music manipulates the audience. It also suits Faithfull as one of the most earth-bound artists ever to break into the heights of pop stardom. Just a few years later, she would be living on the streets, very far indeed from the glamour of fame.

I first encountered the work of Marianne Faithfull in the 1990s. She recorded a song with Angelo Badalamenti for another French film, The City of Lost Children.

She went on to record a whole album with Badalamenti which, as I was so impressed by "Who Will Take My Dreams Away", I bought a copy of. In those pre-internet days, it was some time before I learned of her more successful earlier career.

"Who Will Take My Dreams Away", "As Tears Go By", and the songs on her 1979 comeback album, Broken English, especially the hit "Ballad of Lucy Jordan", share a clear preoccupation with death and passing time that cannot be recovered, a wistful mono no aware.

She was also an actress. In 1968, she starred in The Girl on a Motorcycle, directed by legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff. In 1969, she appeared as Ophelia in a film version of William Shakespeare's Hamlet with Nicol Williamson as Hamlet and Anthony Hopkins as Claudius. It's hard to imagine more appropriate casting for the role. I think she's my favourite Ophelia.