Smith - Collected Lyrics, 1970-2015

Bloomsbury Publishing
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the USA in 1998 as Patti Smith Complete by Doubleday, New York
This revised, updated and expanded edition published in Great Britain 2015 Patti Smith, 1998, 2006, 2015 Because the Night 1978 by Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith. Trampin arranged by Edward Boatner Patti Smith has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. Photographs are from the authors personal collection except where credited otherwise. All rights reserved
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ePub: 978-1-4088-6302-2 To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters. In memory of Fred Sonic Smith,
19481994The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy! ALLEN GINSBERG, FOOTNOTE TO HOWL To Find a Voice We all have a song. A song comes spontaneously, expressing joy, loneliness, to dispel fear or exhibit a small triumph. We hardly notice we are forming them, as we sing them, often alone, half to ourselves.

It is finding the words within that leads us to sing. It might be a hymn, a shard of rebellion, or a teenage prayer. We discover inspiration where we may, in an old guitar in the corner of a garage, under a bed, or hanging in a pawnshop window. In a phrase carried to us by the wind, walking along. In the reflection we see of ourselves in the mirror. Sometimes we recognize our song in the song of another.

It is the miracle of the popular song, songs that are beloved universally, often in their simplicity. The evolution of such little songs into poetry, improvisational performance and collaboration produced these lyrics, written with great hopes to strike some chord, reaching a listener who finds their meaning within, and sings along. The first song I remember singing is Jesus Loves Me. I can picture myself singing it while sitting on a stoop in Chicago, waiting for the organ grinder to come up the street with his pet monkey. I can hear the songs that were in the air. Day-O and Shrimp Boats and Heart of My Hearts.

I can hear my father whistling Deep Purple and the voice of my mother as she sang us to sleep. I recall my first record player, only slightly larger than a lunchbox, and my two records, one red and one yellow: Tuby the Tuba and Big Rock Candy Mountain. I loved watching them spin, contemplating the worlds they evoked. But the song that produced my first visceral reaction was sung by Little Richard. It was Sunday. My mother and I hand in hand.

She was taking me to Bible school. She had kid gloves on like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. They gave her a special air and I admired them tremendously. We passed the boys clubhousetwo huge refrigerator boxes cut and pieced together. Ritchie Glasgow was spinning sides and what wafted from the hand-cut window (more for breathing than for seeing) stopped me dead in my tracks, causing me to let go of my mothers hand so abruptly as to remove her glove. I didnt know what I was hearing or why I reacted so strongly.

It wasnt Shrimp Boats or Day-O. It was something new, and though I didnt comprehend what drew me, drawn I was. Drawn into a childs excited dance. That was Tutti Frutti, so alien, so familiar. That was Little Richard. That was for me the birth of rock and roll.

For a time we lived in Philadelphia. Everyone liked to sing and dance. My sister and I would jitterbug. People sang a cappella on the street corners. When I was nine, we moved to South Jersey. My music teacher adored opera.

He would bring his albums to class and play us selections from Verdi and Puccini. I was taken with this music and I was especially moved by Maria Callas. Her emotional intensity. How she seemed to draw from every fiber to create a whisper. Her arias soared from the turntableespecially my favorite, the opera hit single Un bel d. For a time I dreamed of being an opera singer, but I didnt have the calling, the discipline, or the necessary physical frame.

My teacher, sensing my desire, gave me a glorious task. As Manrico I sang the lullaby from Verdis Il Trovatore. For a brief moment I was able to feel the troubadours expansive love for his home in the mountains. I dreamed of being a jazz singer like June Christie and Chris Connor. Of approaching songs with the lethargic charge of Billie Holiday. Of championing the downtrodden like Lotte Lenyas Pirate Jenny.

But I never dreamed of singing in a rock and roll band. They had yet to exist in my world. But my world was rapidly changing. I was privileged to evolve during an inspired period of spiritual and cultural revolution. And the music was the revolution where all had a voice and through this voice we united. Our battlefields were Ohio, Chicago, the Fillmore.

We gave new meaning to the word soldier. We were slinging an electric guitar instead of a machine gun. I broke from the confines of a rural existence. Farewell the factory, square-dance hall, the withering orchards. I headed for New York City. I had in mind to become a painter and through that pursuit I found my beat and the root of my voice.

Standing before large sheets of paper tacked to a wall, frustrated with the image Id draw words insteadrhythms that ran off the page onto the plaster. Writing lyrics evolved from the physical act of drawing words. Later, refining this process led to performance. In 1969 I moved to the Chelsea Hotel with Robert Mapplethorpe. By then I had abandoned hope of becoming a painter. I was offered work in underground theater.

It was too confining. I longed to spar with the people, to make contact. Robert encouraged me to perform my poetry. I attended readings but found them even more confining than theater. Bob Neuwirth suggested I put my lyric style to music and Sam Shepard used two pieces in his play Mad Dog Blues. On February 10, 1971, I gave my first poetry reading, opening for Gerard Malanga at St. Marks Church on the Bowery.