The forgotten classic Patti Smith called “one of the greatest”
Multi-talented artist Patti Smith has mastered the arts of songwriting, poetry, painting, and more. Born out of the New York no wave scene in the 1980s, Smith became an integral part of the CBGB crowd.
Fusing poetry and punk, she produced her debut album, Horses, alongside The Velvet Underground’s John Cale. The 1975 record has since become one of the most important releases in the genre, though it received limited acclaim at the time of release. Smith eventually rose to wider fame with ‘Because the Night’, a song she co-wrote with Bruce Springsteen. Released in 1978, it formed the lead single for her album Easter by the Patti Smith Group.
Though Patti Smith has gained a reputation as one of the most important alternative musicians of all time, her interest in the obscure and the underground has not wavered.
When ShortList asked Smith to collate her ultimate playlist, she jumped at the chance to name several songs for the prompt “favourite song that no one else has heard of”. She first suggested ‘John Anderson’ by “a Scottish girl”, then ‘If I Can’t Have You’ by Etta James and Harvey Fuqua. But eventually, she landed on ‘Today’s the Day’ by Maureen Gray, which she called “one of the greatest songs”.
Gray was a doo-wop soul artist from New York who released the song with Chancellor Records in 1961. The record was released on 7″ vinyl with ‘Crazy Over You’ as the B-side. The singer later moved to London, collaborating with the likes of David Bowie and John Lennon. ‘Today’s the Day’ is a cheerful, soulful song with contrasting lyrics, which address Gray’s lover on their day of leaving. In an unexpectedly joyous tone, she begs, “Please come back as soon as you can”.
Smith explained, “A young teenage girl singing it, it’s just the exuberance of this song, I used to dance to it when I was like 15.” She paused to sing the line, “Today’s the day that you’re going away”, before stating, “When I hear that song, I have to stop and dance, it’s incredible. Every once in a while – I forget about it for years, and then…”
The singer’s adoration for the song led her to introduce it to her daughter: “I said, ‘Wanna hear a great song?’ and I found it on YouTube, and I leapt up and started dancing, and she went ‘Mommy!’ I was just so excited to hear it.”
While expressing her admiration for the track’s balance of the cheerful and the melancholic, she added: “What’s beautiful about this song is she’s singing about her boyfriend, who is leaving – I don’t know if he was drafted or what, because there were a lot of songs when I was a teenager about boys going off to Korea or then Vietnam – but she’s singing it – ‘Today’s the day that you’re going away’ – with such exuberance, but she’s heartbroken.”
The track differs hugely from Smith’s own music, and perhaps that’s the draw. Her interest in it seems to come not only from its danceability but also from her poetic background, as she admires the song’s seeming juxtaposition of emotions.
Listen to the track that Patti Smith dubbed “one of the greatest” below.
