Hear Marianne Faithfull’s Forceful ‘Vagabond Ways’ Demo for ‘Incarceration of a Flower Child’

Marianne Faithfull will give her 1999 album, Vagabond Ways, the deluxe treatment with a reissue due out March 4. She’s teasing the release with the demo recording for the album’s “Incarceration of a Flower Child,” a song Roger Waters wrote in 1968 but never recorded with Pink Floyd.

On the demo, Faithfull sings along to a backdrop of acoustic guitars and one buzzy electric as she describes a scene of drinking cheap wine and smoking dope on Indian tapestry cushions. “Don’t get up to answer the door, just stay with me here on the floor,” she belts. “It’s going to get cold in the Seventies.” The studio version that appeared on Vagabond Ways sounds more polished thanks to electronics played by co-producer Mark Howard and synth bass by Waters.

The reissue will feature several other previously unreleased demos, an uncirculated studio recording, and new liner notes. In addition to digital and CD reissues, the record will be available on vinyl for the first time.

The bonus material includes “Blood in My Eyes,” a Bob Dylan cover that previously featured on the Japanese edition of the original album, as well as “Drifting,” a song Faithfull wrote and recorded with co-producer Daniel Lanois but never released. It also includes demos of “Vagabond Ways,” “Electra,” and her cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song,” and Waters’ “Incarceration.”

She reflected on her enduring friendship with Waters in a 2014 Rolling Stone feature when she recorded another one of his songs, “Sparrows Will Sing,” for her Give My Love to London album. “He’s one of my dearest friends, and I love him and he’s everything a real gentleman rock star should be,” she said. “He’s not a misogynist. He is not only in it for the money. He is a great man.”