“I admire that”: The songwriters Patti Smith envies
Patti Smith has always moved in her own vein. Her work can’t be easily or neatly categorised. Some call her the Godmother of punk, but even that doesn’t seem to do justice to her poetic lyricism and literary streak. Her label as a ‘punk-poet’ doesn’t seem to cut it either, erasing her ability to craft a perfect, all-out rock and roll song like ‘People Have The Power’ or ‘Because The Night’. But for Smith, that’s exactly the kind of artistry she admires as all the songwriters she loves best dance on the same line between different worlds.
To say that Patti Smith is niche would be to erase her mass success. Worldwide, Smith is one of music’s most revered names and a beloved one in the world of literature, too. She’s harnessed just about every kind of success a person could hope for, from becoming a leader of a subculture respected for her poetic power to major commercial wins.
‘Because The Night’ is a perfect example of this. Not only did the song hit the charts, skyrocketing her name out of the New York art scene and onto the world’s stage, but it also connected her to one of the ultimate names in mainstream rock. The track originally started as a Bruce Springsteen number, but when he couldn’t find the right words, Smith stepped in to finish it. “If she can do it, she can have it,” The Boss said to their mutual producer, Jimmy Iovine, almost as a kind of challenge. Smith not only managed it but managed to find a way to combine her own literary edge, writing spiralling verses about desire and longing to match a classic Springsteen chorus that is designed to be catchy and crowd-pleasing.
She found a perfect balance, and it’s that ability she respects in her favourite songwriters. “You look at somebody like Michael Stipe, a great poet who also knows how to strike that pop chord. I admire that,” she said to Uncut, picking out the REM songwriter as an example of it. She clearly enjoys a songwriter who can make a wordy song, still be hooky, and still pull people into a singalong, even if the lyrics are necessarily easy or simple.
“Whether it’s Marvin Gaye or Bob Dylan or John Lennon or PJ Harvey – these people who can infuse a certain poetic element into a popular song,” she said, adding more artists into the class of craftsmen that she admires.
It’s an obvious statement to say that Patti Smith loves poetry. She loves storytelling and words that make people think. She loves luxurious and interesting lyricism that takes people on a journey through a tale or a feeling. That’s proved again and again in her own discography, where some tracks were even born out of lengthy improvisations as she felt her way through a poem in the studio and the band figured it out around her.
But what punk fans might not realise, or might not want to accept, is that Smith also loves a catchy tune. “I love pop music,” she admits with no qualms, “I like the same songs everybody else likes.” To her, the ability to write songs that are broadly beloved but still sharp and interesting is a true power. However, she’s aware that she’ll most commonly exist in a different realm to that, accepting, “But for myself, I gravitate toward a different kind of expression.”
