“Each time perfect”: the singer Patti Smith defended despite the hate
Those who call Patti Smith the ‘Godmother of Punk’ are usually only telling one side of her story.
It’s true that some of the greatest punk acts of all time would have cited her as an influence back in the day, but her greatest strength was bringing poetry into rock and roll, always having the right words to say and speaking her truth every time she walked up to the microphone. And while a lot of her greatest proteges were those that had real substance behind their music, that didn’t mean Smith couldn’t find merit in some of the most saccharine pop songs that the world had ever known.
Because to her, pop music was never a bad word, necessarily. Some of the best rock and roll songs of all time started off as pop tunes, and when looking through a lot of her first records, it’s not an accident that she covered The Byrds and Them when she was finding her bearings. Her favourite music always came from pop, but by the standards of most punk rock icons, not many would have claimed to have loved every single thing that Debby Boone was doing.
There are many rock and roll icons that tried to break down the boundaries of the genre, but Pat Boone was one of the few who wanted to build a few walls around styles. Despite his failed attempt to become one of the biggest metal icons of his time in the late 1980s, Boone’s first iteration as a crooner seemed to take everything cool about rock and roll and remove it from every song he sang. All it takes is one listen to his version of ‘Tutti Frutti’ compared to Little Richard’s, and you’ll see what I mean.
And it’s not like Debby’s one major dent in the pop charts was all that different. There’s no denying that the song has become a defining tune of its era, but considering the whole thing sounds like the kind of chaste song that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Christian youth group, it’s not like it could be considered “dangerous” by any stretch. But that never stopped Smith from showering it with praise.
Compared to everything else on the charts, Smith could at least acknowledge that Boone was giving it her all and meaning every word she was singing, saying, “I’ve watched Debby Boone sing ‘You Light Up My Life’ maybe fifteen, twenty times. Each time…perfect. Each time with total, focused, concentrated commitment to delivering that song. Which I think is really good. Now I ain’t a Debby Boone fan, and I ain’t gonna start wearing chiffon tent dresses tomorrow. But I did learn something by watching that. I’ve got to be able to deliver that song [‘Because the Night’] with all the strength and integrity and clarity that I was able to deliver it with in the studio. And if Debby Boone can do it, I certainly can do it.”
And if you can give Boone’s breakout single any compliments, it’s that she at least means what she’s singing. The fact that the song is way too open-ended means that you can sing the lyrics to virtually everyone, from your lover to your grandchild to your dog, but when you hit on a song that’s that universal, why not let someone sing about their faith by relating it to their love for Jesus?
Granted, the dramatics and passion are pretty much all the song has going for it, but that doesn’t mean that Boone was destined for stardom. She was always going to be fading into obscurity afterwards, but Smith’s next iteration as a punk goddess was all thanks to being able to sing with the same passion that Boone had when listening to a song like ‘People Have the Power’.
It almost feels dirty trying to compare one of the greatest rock and roll singers to someone who seemed stripped of every piece of rock swagger, but it doesn’t matter if you know how to sell the song right. And if someone could appreciate ‘Because the Night’ and ‘Dancing Barefoot’ just fine, it might not be as hard to stomach ‘You Light My Life’ as you might have thought.
