The Rolling Stones song that “froze” Patti Smith
Alongside Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith has often been regarded as the female answer to Bob Dylan. Of course, her music has never been quite so grounded in the folk scene, but Smith’s poetic knack has seen her lauded as an artist of literary talent beyond the usual scope of music. All the while, Smith’s raw, passionate delivery has earned her the title of Godmother of Punk.
Doubtless, this title befell Smith thanks to the intensity and gritty immediacy of her poetic performances, but as she’s testified on many an occasion, her music was never really punk. “I’ve been called the ‘princess of piss’, ‘the keeper of the phlegm’, ‘the wild mustang of rock ‘n’ roll’,” Smith once told the BBC. “But I was not really a punk, and my band was never a punk rock band.”
“I felt that our cultural voice, which was so magnificent through the late ’60s and early ’70s, was faltering,” she continued, “And there was the rise of stadium rock and glam rock and all of these different things, and I felt like somebody had to save it. I didn’t think that it would be me, but I thought I could play a role. I had a strong sense of myself, and I came to say, ‘Here I am’. I’m speaking to those like me, the disenfranchised, the mavericks. ‘Don’t lose heart, don’t give up.’”
Speaking to Forbes in 2018, Smith further addressed the gulf between the nihilistic attitudes associated with punk and her own. “I think that’s true of many people,” she said. “Myself, I didn’t have a punk ethos philosophy. I’ve never been a negative person; I’m not a nihilist or anything.”
It would appear that the more general rock ‘n’ roll counter-cultural ethos was at the centre of her heart. “All the work that I get involved with has always been for building our cultural voice, rebuilding our world, building communications,” Smith continued. “As far as not caring, I’m sure it was a reaction to things around them. But I’ve never had that. I’m pretty much the way I’ve always been, just obviously happily evolving.”
Smith moved to New York in the late 1960s with classic rock ‘n’ roll as her impetus. As Smith revealed in the 2013 book 50 Licks: Myths and Stories from Half a Century of The Rolling Stones, The Rolling Stones was the fors rock group that grabbed her attention.
Her first exposure to the British Invasion group was their 1964 performance of Kai Winding’s ‘Time Is on My Side’ on The Ed Sullivan Show. “My brain froze. I was doing all my thinking between my legs. I got shook. Light broke,” Smith recalled, adding, “I can tie the Stones in with every sexual release of my late blooming adolescence.”
While Smith was mesmerised by the Stones’ sensual performance, her father was a little too set in his ways to adapt to the music of the youth. “Pa was shouting from the TV room. ‘Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!’ I ran in panting,” Smith remembered. “I was scared silly. There was Pa glued to the TV screen, cussing his brains out. A rock ‘n’ roll band was doing it right on The Ed Sullivan Show. Pa was frothing like a dog. I never seen him so mad.”
“I lost contact with him [Pa] quick,” she added. “That band was as relentless as murder. I was trapped in a field of hot dots. The guitar player had pimples. The blonde kneeling down had circles ringing his eyes. One had greasy hair. The other didn’t care.”
Watch The Rolling Stones’ performance of ‘Time Is on My Side’ on The Ed Sullivan Show below.
