Hear Me Out: Patti Smith is the greatest poet in music history
Rock ‘n’ roll will probably never run out of great songwriters. For as long as people have had a fire in their hearts, they have channelled that energy through instruments to bring their personal experiences into the greatest songs ever made. Although acts like Bob Dylan or Lou Reed might be the gold standard for what most rock fans consider great songwriters, Patti Smith outshines all of them…and it’s not even particularly close.
Of course, this sentiment isn’t an effort to put fault on other musicians who can write a tune. Bob Dylan has always been known for writing intimate character portraits, and Joni Mitchell has always seemed to pour over her lyrics like a painter sculpting a tune out of nothing. When it comes to the pure practice of poetry, though, Smith stands all on her own.
This can be traced back to the very first lines of her first album. Inspired by the beat poet generation and her heroes like Dylan and Reed, Smith opens with perhaps the greatest line in music history: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine”. From the minute she started, it was about bringing down the typical tropes that anyone had about what rock was supposed to be.
Venturing past the opening lines, the instrumentation behind Smith almost felt secondary to what she was getting off her chest. Coming from the poetry world, it’s as if Smith is trying to exorcise demons from her soul rather than sing a song, sounding as though she’s on the brink of madness when spelling out the name ‘Gloria’.
Then again, most rock ‘n’ rollers have prided themselves on being able to sell the lyrics as they believe them. While it’s noble for most artists to stand behind what their art is supposed to be, Smith is telling it like it is because she has lived through the kind of pain that she is talking about. When she has to end up saving her baby sister in ‘Kimberly’ or professing her love in ‘Dancing Barefoot’, never once does the listener think that Smith isn’t speaking the truth.
Notice the qualifier that you saw in the title of this article, though. Poet, not songwriter. Although Dylan may have been phenomenal at crafting songs, the fact that they are draped in a narrative concept has always put him more in the songwriter category than Smith. Even if parts of something like ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ ring true, it’s still easier to get caught up in the story of Mr Jones than Dylan’s venom.
When it comes to poetry, it’s about putting all the emotions trapped inside the artist onto the page. Regardless of her feelings, it’s easy to hear everything Smith feels within one line of a song. It could be angry, it could be sad, or it could be reflective, but it’s never once devoid of emotion.
Even without the instrumentation, each of Smith’s songs work just as well in verse. It’s easy to latch onto the different guitar hooks spread across her discography or the fantastic covers she’s done over the years, but Smith has always worked strongest when she’s had some sort of target.
Like all poets before her, Smith has never been afraid to use wordplay to her advantage. Although most people might think that a song titled ‘People Have the Power’ might come off as preachy, Smith never articulates it like she’s talking down to anyone. Her audience believes in it because they can hear how hard she believes in it too.
That mindset has translated her work to millions of fans worldwide, with everyone from Billie Joe Armstrong to Shirley Manson counting Patti Smith as a significant influence. It’s also not that hard to imagine that an album like Horses as ground zero for the riot grrl movement, also involving poets that lashed out against the traditional norms of rock music.
Smith’s biggest strength also comes from the fact that she has never stopped. Even outside of her discography, her muse has also followed her into some of the most fascinating literature of the modern age. Whether she’s writing in conjunction with Kevin Shields on The Coral Sea or documenting her life living in New York on Just Kids, Smith is still laser-focused on the mechanics of her craft as she has ever been.
While every great rock star grows into a songwriter over time, the kind of fire that burns within Smith can’t be taught. It comes from years of life experience and channelling that experience onto the page. Dylan may have shaken rock ‘n’ rollers up about the way they wanted to live their lives, but Smith’s words touched rock ‘n’ roll right on its wound.
