The Patti Smith song inspired by “the Ninja of Japan”
Patti Smith, the iconic singer-songwriter whose career blossomed alongside the New York City punk rock movement in the early 1970s, has maintained a prolific and enduring musical journey. Within punk, Smith transcended the boundaries of the genre and redefined creativity after the whirlpool of the revolutionary 1960s.
Accompanied by her dynamic band, Smith passionately delivered her incendiary verses to captivated audiences, seamlessly merging two distinctive musical styles. This fusion revolutionised the experience of savouring poetry and introduced an innovative approach to live performances. In the eloquent words of Smith herself: “I did it for poetry. I did it for Rimbaud…I wanted to infuse the written word with the immediacy and frontal attack of rock and roll.”
A notably unconventional track within Patti Smith’s repertoire, ‘Seven Ways Of Going’ is a joint effort featuring the collaborative contributions of the four Patti Smith Group members. A spiritual song exploring introspection through a transformation lens, ‘Seven Ways Of Going’ depicts personal accounts of yearning and self-discovery.
In a 1979 interview with New York Rocker, Lenny Kaye provided insights into the meaning of the song: “‘Seven Ways’ was originally about the Ninja of Japan, who were these 16th-century assassins, like a martial arts offshoot in Japanese medieval times,” he said. “They wore black, and they developed these techniques where, for instance, they could walk in the snow without showing which direction they were walking in, or they could go against that wall and become that wall. That kind of transformation is really what we’re into.”
Escalating into a cacophony of sound, including the incorporation of a timpani, the song was meticulously crafted by Smith and her group during their studio sessions at Bearsville in Woodstock, New York. The creative process involved extensive experimentation facilitated by their producer, Todd Rundgren.
Despite having a repertoire of more popular and accessible songs to select from, the band found this track to be an excellent avenue for showcasing their live talents due to the improvisational nature it took on. Smith’s fans welcomed the unique renditions, and the piece continued to make appearances in the set lists of some of her subsequent tours.
At a time when punk needed a crucial pioneering figure to transform it from a burgeoning genre to a fully-fledged, creative force, Smith arrived with her infusion of poeticism and depth of meaning when crafting poignant lyrics. As she told Mojo, “I was young, but I felt our cultural voice was in jeopardy and needed an infusion of new people and ideas. I didn’t feel like I was the one. I didn’t consider myself a musician in any way, but I was a poet and performer, and I did feel that I understood where we were at, what we’d been given and where we should go, and if I could voice it, perhaps it could inspire the next generation.”
