“I Certainly Didn’t Want to Go to Heaven if There Was No Art In Heaven.”
Patti Smith, the Godmother of Punk
(Most of my writing about women in popular music has focused on those who broke traditional role boundaries by producing, arranging, playing instruments, and managing their careers. Smith is a bit of an odd case because while she did all of those things (except playing instruments), it was almost reluctantly. Yet she ended up in charge.)
I didn’t immediately “get” Patti Smith.
Her only commercial hit was “Because the Night,” which I didn’t like when it came out in 1978 and still don’t like. Ok, so crucify me, but I know the back story, and I still think it’s terrible. I did know college classmates who had her albums, so I probably heard other stuff by her, but through the haze of party noise and illicit substances.
It wasn’t until decades later that I circled back and took the opportunity to listen to Smith’s 1975 album “Horses.” It was like being hit by a bomb. What had I missed?
Smith is now revered as one of our time's major poets, songwriters, and performance artists. She is known as the Godmother of Punk and continues to influence musicians, artists, and writers in many genres.
She started off with a pretty unexceptional suburban childhood. However, she recalls it as haunted by a feeling of being a misfit, even an alien, with a case of what we now might call gender dysphoria. She loved art, music, and poetry but had few outlets for her interests. It didn’t help that, as Jehovah’s Witnesses, her parents considered most artistic performance to be the work of the Devil.
At 20, she became pregnant (she gave the baby up for adoption) and then tried a short foray into college life. After she dropped out and moved to New York, she could finally pursue her interests.
Ironically, her initial mission was “not to be an artist, but an artist’s mistress,” i.e., a muse. She had relationships with many of the leading lights of the art, music, and theatre world, including Robert Mapplethorpe, Sam Shephard, and Allen Lanier, and even married one of them (Fred Smith of the band MC5, with whom she had her two children).
By their telling, she did indeed inspire all of them. After the relationships ended, most of these men remained her friends and frequent collaborators. Most importantly, they all encouraged her and pushed her to do stuff under her own name; some even produced some of her work.
Smith ended up recording and releasing over a dozen albums to date. She’s also published some thirty books and received numerous honors and inclusions in various “best of” lists.
The irony of all the establishment accolades is that she was, and remains, about as anti-establishment as you can get.
………
This is the title track from Patti Smith’s first album, “Horses.” Even then, the world was being taken over by three-minute, content-free songs, so it must have taken courage to put out something like this. Today, it’s hard to imagine anyone doing anything like it.
Rock ‘n Roll N*****
This has always been a “difficult” song, to say the least. Is it racist? Anti-racist? Is this appropriation or a statement of solidarity? It continues to be debated.
Unlike Lennon and Ono’s “Woman is the n***** of the world,” this song takes a first-person viewpoint, making it all the more difficult to parse. Smith continues to perform it as an encore to most of her shows. For a deeper discussion, see the Waterman reference below.
Note: The YouTube clip for this song is available by clicking here.
Sources:
Bockris and Bayley, “Patti Smith, Unauthorized Biography”
https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/DM813EFRYcoC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA19
Waterman, 2008 “A Few Observations on Patti Smith’s ‘Rock ‘n Roll N*****’”
http://www.greatwhatsit.com/archives/2336
Sinagra, 2005, “Celebrating ‘Horses,’” New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/arts/music/celebrating-horses-and-everything-after.html
Wikipedia entries on Patti Smith, Sam Shephard, “Horses.”
I appreciated your candor, Charles, in adding Patti to your rock ladies salute! I didn't really "get" her either, early on...at least, artistically. As you can imagine, I enjoyed watching how she played with the press, and how they reacted to her.
As an avid reader of all rock press (and she was a darling of the press...they seemed to enjoy her eccentricities), I was certainly aware of her every move, even before her "Horses" Arista 1975 debut! As a NY performer, she was always written about in the same breath as all the emerging NYC punk acts, like Ramones, T. Heads, Television, et al, a scene I was following intently. In fact, I had her rare '74 indie "Hey Joe"/"Piss Factory" single.
Also, as a fan of record companies and their inner workings, I was interested to see how (and why) Clive Davis signed her, and would approach her career...i.e. how long would it take before the inevitable "I want some hit singles" memo "hit her desk"! As someone who brought in Janis, Bruce, and many others, and oversaw Dylan's career on Columbia, Clive was certainly not a newbie in guiding artistically prodigious artists!
Speaking of Bruce, I always enjoyed "Because the Night"; adding to my enjoyment was the songwriting notion of Bruce actually deigning to write a song with a collaborator....plus, it was interesting to observe Patti going full-bore commercial in a classic pop songwriting template. Without being a Bruce completist, I'm willing to bet that "BTN" is STILL the only song he's written with ANYBODY else!
I bought her "Babel" book in '78, and briefly met her shortly thereafter to have her sign it. That autographed book was the very first item (of an eventual 5,000 to 7,000 items, mostly promo LPs and promo items) I sold on eBay starting in '98, 20 years later! Can't recall how much it brought in.
A radio story: In October '76, when her 2nd LP, "Radio Ethiopia" was released, I was doing a weeknights 7-midnight shift at WFMF-FM102, Baton Rouge, Louisiana's commercial "progressive rock"/AOR station. I was 21. Wanting to be at least as renegade as Patti, on the day we got the album in the station, I played the 10-minute title track, completely without audition (which you just don't/didn't do in radio!).
Needless to say, while the track was far too long to play (and unlistenable, as it turned out), it lit up my phones with Baton Rougians bellowing stuff like, "Play 'Free Bird,' man!" Also, in the song, she utters the dreaded "f"-word (which, again, I couldn't know, as this, too, was MY first listen!!)😱I kept waiting for our station manager to call, but alas, he didn't...nor did the FCC! My saving grace is that I played it in the last hour of my shift, sometime in the 11pm hour.
I was fascinated by the bravado in her art, and how SO different in everything she was and did than anyone else...(she even played guitar). I also loved the fact that she employed a rock critic/writer, Lenny Kaye (who also curated the "Nuggets" compilation album) as a guitarist!
If you ever do a series on rock writers who became rock musicians, don't leave out John Mendelsohn (L.A. Times, Rolling Stone), who was in Christopher Milk (on United Artists, Warner Bros. with an EP on Bomp Records)!
Those are my Patti stories and rememberies! I thank you for the real estate to express 'em all, Charles! You're exceedingly tolerant, patient, and fun to read! Keep it up!💿🎵🎶🎼🎸🎤👍