“It’s so beautiful”: Patti Smith on the song that almost slipped away
Professional songwriters always have to grapple with the moment their songs are given to somebody else. Any composition can feel like someone’s creative child, so when it has to be given away, it’s like the artist in question takes a part of you with them when they sing those words. And for an artist as intrinsically linked to her music as Patti Smith is, she understood that some songs needed to fall by the wayside after a while.
But it’s hard to separate Smith from her words whenever she sings them. Countless artists hold her in extremely high regard for a damn good reason, but while someone like Billy Idol tried to interpolate the first lines of ‘Gloria’ for his cover of The Velvet Underground’s ‘Heroin’, there’s no way to listen to it without thinking of Smith sneering out those lyrics about Jesus not dying for her sins.
As time went on, though, Smith was content to let some of her music fade into the background. She knew that she wanted to live her life without the same obligations that every other rock star had, and when listening to some of her later records, the downtempo demeanour she had when working on her songs saw her grow into her artistic boots a lot more.
She might not have had the most prolific release schedule the record label was looking for, but she never looked at her music as some commercial commodity. It was art first and foremost, so whenever she came out with a record, it was always because she had something inside of her that needed to be expressed rather than sitting around in the studio waiting for inspiration to strike.
That’s not to say she wasn’t against working with major companies if the right opportunity arose. She knew that any kind of exposure on a grand scale would be great if it all served the right purpose, and when she wrote the song ‘Mercy Is’ for Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, she was shocked that she was able to have her voice over the credits instead of giving it to a more experienced singer.
Whereas most blockbuster films like to have their showstopping singers in the end credits, Smith was pleasantly surprised to be able to hear her voice in the film, saying, “I thought somebody else would be chosen to sing it. People have used ‘Pissing in a River’ and ‘Because the Night’, but I’ve never been chosen to write a song or sing a song in the credits. It’s a beautiful song – sorry to say, because it’s my own song! It’s a delicate little song, but it also has its strength.”
For a movie as heavy as Noah, ‘Mercy Is’ is the perfect way to close out the film. While Arronofsky does take a few left turns that people may not have seen coming in the movie, hearing Smith’s voice talking about waiting for God to protect you from destruction is a perfect companion piece for someone desperately calling upon their higher power.
While many people might have expected something a bit more lively for the finale, Smith’s voice is exactly what the ending of the movie needed. It would have been a cop-out to get any other singer who can belt to the high heavens, but listening to Smith’s voice, her years of experience behind the microphone made her sound like she lived through every single word that she sang.
