Song of the Day 4/9: John Prine and Marianne Faithfull, “This Love Is Real”

The roll call of the stricken continues. Marianne Faithfull has been hospitalized in London with covid-19 since late last week. She recorded this with John Prine for his 1995 LP, “Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings.”

Old heads remember Faithfull as one of the young beauties who flitted around the Rolling Stones in the swingin’ London scene of the mid-60s. She was an aspiring actress and folk singer when she went to a Stones album-release party and was “discovered” by their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham. Before the year was out she had recorded the Jagger-Richards tune “As Tears Go By” and she was a star.

Years of hard living, including heroin addiction and homelessness, took a toll on her voice, but in 1979 she made an unexpected comeback with her “Broken English.” This was the first single from the LP.