philmh: i'm not surprised - yr hmbl srppint.'d've been bloody furious, and it'd happened to me. (times i've had aught to do with "editorial control", it's been mostly wrt sf & fantasy p/bs, & yr hmbl srppint.'s usually° been determinedly on the auctorial side.)
Hi ppint, no such thing as Island Records Australia back in 1979 - that was a 2007 invention under Universal. The excising of the track was entirely down to Island's then distributor Festival, and was done without any reference to Island or Marianne. IIRC she was really p'd off when she found out about it.
l'wrecker: how... uncreative of island xxxxia - yr hmbl srppint.'m tolerably certain there'd've been a choice of - good quality - outtakes from which an acceptable - and appropriate - track or three could have been selected, and ms. faithfull's decision as to which of them might best fit that particular title sought, and acted upon. . .
The Australian version of this album is only rated 13.125/10 and not the full 15/10 accredited to UK version. This is because "Why D'ya Do It" was deemed to offensive for puritanical Australia brains and was conspicuously omitted from the album. I say conspicuously because where the song title is meant to appear on the label or sleeve has not been blanked out but replaced with *** *'** ** **. Pretty clever eh, but worse than that though is the silent track of over 3 mins that concludes the album. The record execs. tried to make up for the loss by throwing in a free single of, you guessed it, Broken English. Hopeless, but still a great album though and deserving of its score of 13.125/10.
Reviewa perfect album, and imnsho marianne faithfull's best - superb performances expertly supported by her pick of the best musicians in town, including not a few making the journey in to make sure they were in town... but, more than anything, it's a woman's declaration that she survived and came out on top of all life, fleet street and the music industry could do - in music.
yet another island album achieving 15/10. honestly (if not mathematically possible).