The music legend Patti Smith never connected with: “He doesn’t move me”
Anything that Patti Smith listened to needed to be doing a little more than traditional rock and roll.
She already had a weak stomach for the corporate version of rock and roll that filled arenas around the world throughout the 1970s, and while she did get a respite from that during the punk revolution and grunge’s day in the sun, the reason why those bands worked was that she could feel the passion behind everything they were doing. But even if someone had the right ideas in mind, there were a few moments where Smith didn’t really click with a band like she felt she should have.
Granted, a lot of that comes down to personal taste. Even though it sounds apocryphal, there’s a good chance that there are people out there who think that The Beatles are one of the worst bands to ever walk the Earth, and we all just have to accept that. But you’d think that for someone who prioritised art as much as Smith did, that she would have been a little bit more receptive to David Bowie’s manner of performing.
He was the epitome of what the reinvention of rock and roll was supposed to be, and in the era where The Velvet Underground were the biggest underground band in the world, Bowie was practically the next logical step after he started donning strange outfits and looking like a rock and roll alien that descended from the heavens. But since he wore his ideas on his sleeve, you were either going to love or hate him from the moment that he came onstage.
If there’s one thing that Bowie could be described as, it sure as hell wasn’t subtle, and when he came out covered head to toe in technicolour clothes and face paint, he was trying to give audiences a thrill they hadn’t seen before. He wanted people to appreciate him the same way that he appreciated Lou Reed and Iggy Pop back in the day, but between those shocked parents and rockers that found their calling, Smith found herself somewhere in the middle of both parties.
She definitely admired what Bowie brought to the table, but something may have been lost in translation when bringing his British sensibilities to America, saying, “The 1970s basically were a period where different people were trying to take a throne, you see? The only people that were interesting at all – not always even anyone that I liked – were people like David Bowie. And I don’t demean David Bowie, in fact, some of his work has been inspirational to me, but he’s still… he’s not an American. You know, he doesn’t move me. I don’t want to say anything negative, because he does enough positive things that make him worthwhile to me. But he didn’t excite me in the ’70s.”
Given the music that Smith had listened to, though, it’s not hard to see why she had more of an aversion to Bowie. Her heroes practically looked like pieces of American folklore half the time, and while she could certainly appreciate the influences from someone like Reed on Bowie’s material, she wanted to have someone that she could truly relate to, that she could recognise within a few lines.
Then again, Bowie did give Smith more than a few opportunities to appreciate him, depending on every album he made. He was a chameleon in every sense of the word, and he wanted the chance to try everything he could and see what worked for him, lest he be looked at as the man in the makeup who once claimed to be an alien from outer space in the 1970s.
And when you look at both Smith’s and Bowie’s careers side by side, you can see both of them wanting to make something authentic. Anyone could have gone onstage hoping to make the greatest rock and roll song ever made, but they needed to hear something that they could feel in their guts before they even thought about putting it on vinyl.
