How Marianne Faithfull transformed a heavy metal classic
Marianne Faithfull might be the last person people think of in terms of heavy metal, but her one dabbling with the heavy side of rock is delightfully sinister.
(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Music » From The Vault
Thu 30 January 2025 19:40, UK
Heavy metal has never been a genre known for making everything sound nice and pleasant. As much as their songs helped people through dark times, there wasn’t anyone throwing on a Black Sabbath record looking for a pick-me-up whenever Tony Iommi’s guitar riffs came screaming through the speakers. And while Marianne Faithfull feels like the last person who should be associated with metal music, she managed to transform one of Metallica’s greatest commercial tracks.
When the thrash legends first started going commercial, though, every single metal fan seemed to be heartbroken around the world. This was supposed to be the band that toured until the sun burned out of the sky, and yet here they were, coming through with tracks that wouldn’t have felt out of place on a Bon Jovi record. The purists may have been mad, but since The Black Album is still a strong record, it was hardly a problem for casual fans.
While the band didn’t want to repeat themselves, their Load era is one of the oddest beasts in their catalogue. The first instalment, Load, still has some decent moments that echo back to their last record, but the slower tunes like ‘Mama Said’ and their flirtation with everything from alternative to Southern rock left a lot of mainstream fans scratching their heads wondering what hype train they hopped on.
Even if they doubled down on ReLoad, they did bring back the heavy tunes by opening the track up with ‘Fuel’, which is still one of their fiercest tunes. Right as they start things off at ten, ‘The Memory Remains’ was the most experimental thing they had ever done, which led to them getting Faithfull into the vocal booth to create the final wordless chant at the very end of the song.
The lyrics might not be that complementary as James Hetfield sings about a tin goddess that has lost her mojo, but Faithfull is far from that kind of character in the tune. Since she was always known for her softer alto voice, hearing her sing along with the guitar line is easily the most haunting moment of her career. If Hetfield talked about someone losing everything their fame gave them, Faithfull might as well be the spirit coming to whisk them away.
Faithfull’s verse also marks the first and only time that Metallica has had a guest vocalist on one of their songs. Even though many of their thrash masterpieces do a better job of telling a story from Hetfield’s perspective, this is an important way of showing both sides of ‘The Memory Remains’, both the major story of someone’s fall from grace and the person who oversees their downfall.
In fact, this could be a heavier version of what Faithfull wanted with The Beatles but never got. Despite pulling for Paul McCartney to give her ‘Eleanor Rigby’, this is a more sinister version of that, complete with her wordless chanting acting like Hetfield’s version of Father McKenzie in the tune’s narrative.
And while Faithfull has been known as a sidenote in the grand story of Metallica, there’s a reason why everyone chants along with her vocals on the song when they play the track live. Faithfull may have only been in the band’s life for a few hours in a vocal booth, but those notes she sings are still reverberating around metal to this day.
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Marianne FaithfullMetallica
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