Patti Smith

While reading Just Kids, Patti Smith's memoir of her early life and relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, I listened to her music incessantly. I have five of Smith's albums: Horses, Radio Ethiopia, Easter, Dream of Life, and Gone Again. Only the last one, though, do I have on CD. In order to get a comprehensive overview of her work, I picked up a two-disc anthology titled Land, and that's what I've listening to.

Smith, considered the "Godmother of Punk," emerged in the mid-'70s in New York City as a poet/punk rocker. Her first album, Horses, garnered her much attention. She gained a lot of attention after appearing on Saturday Night Live in 1976, when she and her group performed a cover of Van Morrison's "Gloria," which she fused with a poem of her own called "Oath." The song begins, "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine." The show aired the night before Easter, but since she went on after midnight, she was technically performing the song on Easter morning. Believe it or not, people actually paid attention to that sort of thing back then.

Smith's version of "Gloria" is a masterpiece, a hybrid of punk and classic rock that 35 years later still gets my blood pumping. But she had many great songs during that era, and on Land they flow from one to the other: "Dancing Barefoot," the Native-American influenced "Ghost Dance," "Pissing in a River," (which is more beautiful and powerful than any song with the word "pissing" in the title has a right to be), and "Free Money." Her biggest hit was co-written with Bruce Springsteen, "Because the Night," which is about as perfect a pop song as you can get.

After a hiatus she returned with the album "Dream of Life" in 1988, which contains the anthemic "People Have the Power," which is a great song, only it's a shame that Tea Party has co-opted that message. My only regret about the Land collection is that it doesn't contain the gorgeous tribute to her son, "Jackson's Song," which is on that album. From Gone Again, Land contains the eerie "Summer Cannibals."

Smith, in the liner notes, describes the structure of Land: "Disc One -- you have chosen for me. Disc Two -- has been chosen for you." Thus the second disc contains demo tracks, live performances, and some oddities. Smith can always surprise--"Come Back Little Sheba" sounds like an old Appalachian folk tune. Generally spoken-word poetry is not my cup of tea, but "Spell" is a heartfelt tribute to the Beats (she was friends with Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and William Burroughs). To really keep us guessing, the second disc has a bonus track of Smith singing "Tomorrow," from Annie, which she dedicates to her mother. It's one of the best versions of that song I've heard.

Patti Smith created a lasting legacy. She was one of the major influences on Michael Stipe of R.E.M., and merged the poetic sensibility of Rimbaud and Baudelaire with the grinding sound of CBGB's punk. Her voice, deep and precise, rounded out vowels as if the existence of Earth depended on it, which gives an urgency to her vocals that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck even today.