Patti Smith's Horses (11 page)

It is at this point that the vocal performance builds on the political significance announced in the introduction. As the verse progresses, the singer’s habitation of the male protagonist’s misogynistic reply (“I’m gonna go shoot my ol’ lady”) feels darkly subversive and indeed paves the way for a final act of
detournement
, a fantasy piece in which s/he imagines him/herself “standing there under that flag with your carbine / Between my legs.” Having blurred the boundary between Patti and Patty, female victim and male victimizer, hetero- and homosexual identity, the singer asserts that she is “free”: “I am nobody’s million dollar baby, I am nobody’s Patsy anymore / I’m nobody’s million dollar baby, I’m nobody’s Patsy anymore / And I feel so free.”

As an artefact, the Mer recording of “Piss Factory/Hey Joe” is a thing of wonder. Across its two sides, Patti Smith and her collaborators compact more predatory energy, more wit and intelligence, and more evidence for the worth of personal
and collective freedom, than virtually any other record release of the first half of the decade.

In the wake of the single’s release, Smith, Kaye, and Sohl shared a ten-night residency with Television at Max’s Kansas City, beginning on Wednesday, August 28, and running through to Monday, September 9. A video or film of one of these nights, by the American photographer Bob Gruen, documents the astonishing progress of the band. Opening with a rollicking cover of Lou Reed’s “We’re Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together,” replete with an additional self-penned verse pursuing an ambiguous drug/race theme (“I went to Harlem, looking for something black … don’t you know the blackest thing in Harlem is white?”), the trio return to their cabaret roots for a version of Bessie Smith’s “I’m Wild About That Thing,” with salacious backing vocals by Lenny Kaye. The next number, “Harbor Song,” the first original of the set, anticipates the spaced out, impressionistic style of “Birdland,” its lyrics centering on the dreams and desires of a dejected female protagonist. “Harbor Song” is followed by a cover of Smokey Robinson’s “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game,” its wounded pride offering a delicate counterpoint to the darker and more strident yearnings of the previous number. “Piss Factory” comes next, the lyrics on the single version segueing seamlessly into an improvised incantation that embraces Jean Genet’s prison novel,
The Miracle of the Rose
(1965), and demonstrates, as always, the overwhelming urge to “get out of here.” For the first poem of the evening, Smith reads “Marianne Faithfull,” from
Seventh Heaven
. The
verse serves as an introduction to a lacerating rendition of the Stones’s “Paint It Black,” with Smith at the opening intoning the lyrics in the style of a German chanteuse: Nico, Lotte Lenya, or Marlene Dietrich. Drawing again on her theatrical roots, Smith had taken to accompanying the song with a mock striptease, slowly removing her white shirt and black tie to reveal an all-black outfit underneath (see Amy Gross’s review, quoted earlier). In a show notable for its thoughtful balancing of light and shade, the band shift from burlesque to deep soul balladry for a moving performance of “We Three.” At the song’s close, the sense of poignancy is kicked swiftly into touch by a spirited run through of “Picture Hanging Blues,” the jaunty, blues-based tribute to Jesse James, which Smith and Kaye debuted at their 1971 St. Mark’s show.

The set’s penultimate song is an early version of “Land.” Starting out as a straightforward version of the Chris Kenner/Cannibal and the Headhunters/Wilson Pickett number, “Land of 1000 Dances,” Smith’s rendition of the song, even at this stage, contains improvised elements that survive into the recording sessions for
Horses
. As the song mutates, the transition from R&B standard to surrealistic vision is signalled, as it is on the record, by the chorus from Chris Kenner and Alain Toussaint’s “I Like It Like That” (1961). Also in place are the lines running from “Can’t you show me nothing but surrender,” through “go Rimbaud … go Rimbaud,” to “Twistelette twistelette twistelette.” The closing section, known as “La Mer(de)” on
Horses
, is again familiar, with the band sustaining the “Land” chords as Smith intones “Let it calm down let it calm down.” As yet, however, the “sea of possibilities” and the lines detailing the death and transfiguration of Johnny remain vague and undetermined.

In her December 1975 interview with Tony Hiss and David McClelland, Smith explained the song’s genesis: “I started the first ‘Land’—this was Upstairs at Max’s Kansas City—with a recitation of a New York poem from
Witt
[the title poem]. The poem’s about a carnival of fools in a city where you can’t see the stars, but I gave it a New York ballad rendition—you know, let’s keep on laughing, let’s keep on dancing” (Hiss and McClelland 1976). In a carnivalesque space, dominated by the reflected glare of neon and sodium, it becomes impossible to orient oneself in relation to reality; as for the impulse toward the divine, signalled by the light of distant stars: forget it. The “land where we am” is a land for “lost souls.” Here, instead of “angels,” we encounter only “the seduced and the discarded … the tricked ones.” Under the influence of choloroform, the speaker describes a dream vision of “courtship with the angels,” an experience that leaves him/her “satisfied … completely wiped out,” yet wondering if “there is yet a more natural light, one that rips and zings.” The inquiry yields a final vision of sexual intensity, surpassing faith that “can move mountains,” coming at last “like the flood” (Smith 1994). In the course of their interview, Hiss and McClelland describe Smith’s songs as “counterspells, attempts to release herself and the audience from all the dark forces of late 20th century delusions.” Described thus, “Witt” bears the imprint of Smith’s sustained fascination with Rimbaud, and the endeavor to supplant the illusory ecstasies of religion with the materialist excesses of the body. In performance, at Max’s Kansas City, the movement from the land of illusion through the corporeal heights of sex and narcosis to the febrile rhythms of “Land of a Thousand Dances” is but a step away. But such abandon can be sustained only for a short while, and, as the
band locks into the key of F, there is, quite simply, nowhere left to go, and nothing left to do, but to “let it calm down let it calm down.” What the song needed, and what the singer was searching for, was a focal point to unify its diverse strands. On this early recording, there are some hints of what is to come: scattered references to riders on horseback, to “pretty boys and sisters” and, crucially, to the mythical presence of Johnny (“Johnny is coming … he’s coming [x 2].… Come on in Johnny [x 3] …
johnny, Johnny, Johnny
… do you know how to pony?”), but, as yet, the heart of “Land” is undetermined.

At the close of “Land,” Smith begins to declaim an extemporized poem, sections of which would find their way into the prose poem “neo boy” (Smith 1984). Its opening statement, “everything comes down so pasturized … the past projects fantastic scenes / tic/toc tic/toc tic/toc …,” which was eventually used to preface the band’s version of “Time Is on My Side” (1964), picks up on Smith’s dissatisfaction with contemporary rock ’n’ roll. What follows is a roll call of the great and the good: a mythical killer shoots down Baudelaire and Rimbaud, they fall down on one knee; the sequence shifts to the United States: Jan and Dean, Chuck Jackson, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, the Rolling Stones, Arthur Lee, all fall down on one knee, heralding the arrival of the “black angel” Jimi Hendrix, whose set at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 climaxed with the rock legend going down on
both
knees to set his guitar alight. As Smith intones “a new language … a new rhythm is coming … it’s not dead!,” Kaye strums the by now familiar opening to “Hey Joe.” The cabaret, it seems, was over: it was time to celebrate the rebirth of rock ’n’ roll.

The trio wound up 1974 with a brief tour of California, playing shows to small but committed crowds in Berkeley and Los Angeles. Since their residency at Max’s Kansas City the previous summer, several new songs had been added to the repertoire: “Break It Up,” “Birdland,” “Distant Fingers,” “Free Money,” “Space Monkey,” “Redondo Beach,” “Snowball,” and a version of Them’s “Gloria” (1964). With the addition of these songs, the cabaret elements that had defined their earlier performances began to recede. Although Smith continued to preface the performances with poetry readings, the trio were becoming, almost despite themselves, a rock ’n’ roll act. This shift in emphasis necessitated a reconsideration of their live sound. On at least one occasion during their Californian tour, the trio had played with a drummer (reputedly Jonathan Richman, of the Modern Lovers), but more pressing, from Kaye’s point of view at least, was the wish to add a second
guitar player. Following auditions, a young Czechoslovakian émigré named Ivan Kral was recruited. Although not technically gifted, Kral impressed the trio with his ability to sustain a rhythmic “field,” enabling Kaye to focus on lead lines. Smith, meanwhile, was garnering notice as a poet once again, following a triumphant performance at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project New Year Extravaganza. The event, which included readings by Yoko Ono, John Giorno, and Allen Ginsberg, was hailed by the
Village Voice
as a cultural landmark, with Patti Smith singled out as a name to watch. By the close of 1975, this prediction would, of course, come true. But it would be rock ’n’ roll, not poetry, that would establish her fame.

Following performances at CBGBs, the band began to attract some serious record company interest, even going so far as to record a demo tape for RCA in February 1975. To date, only two tracks from this session have merited official release, but “Redondo Beach” and “Distant Fingers,” both included on the second disk of the 2002
Land
compilation, mark a noticeable advance, in terms of performance and production values, on the two tracks recorded at Electric Lady the previous summer (though how much of this is down to the 2002 digital remix is uncertain). And yet, while the vocals on “Redondo Beach” sound fresh and intimate, the players, in the absence of a drummer, are clearly struggling to sustain the song’s reggae rhythm. Despite Sohl’s best efforts, the lack of hi-hat and snare renders the performance somewhat flat. In live shows, this deficiency could be masked by Smith’s charisma and the sheer gung-ho attitude of the band, but on tape the lack of a solid rhythmic base is acutely apparent. It would be several months before the band would recruit a permanent drummer.

Yet despite such gaps, interest in the band would continue to grow. From the late 60s onward, Clive Davis had a reputation for nurturing strong female talent. As president of Columbia records, he had signed Laura Nyro and Janis Joplin; now, as president of the newly created Arista records, he had Patti Smith in his sights. Back in 1971, following the St. Mark’s show, Davis had tried to secure Smith for CBS. Smith, wisely it seems, turned this offer down. Four years later, noting RCA’s interest, and encouraged by Lou Reed, Davis sprang once again into action, reputedly offering her a $750,000 contract by way of incentive. The deal was apparently clinched mid set at a CBGBs gig in March. Despite the stringent terms of the contract, which called for seven records of new material within a four-year period, Smith was eager to sign, reportedly informing Davis, at one of their first meetings, “I’m not getting any younger [Smith was twenty-eight]. I have to be in a rush—I don’t have the strength to take too long becoming a star” (Hiss and McClelland 1975). This attitude chimed well with the fledgling company’s aggressive demands. As Bob Feiden, Davis’s second in command stated, “If artists are not willing to kill themselves selling themselves, why sign them? It’s not worth it” (ibid.). But while Smith was willing to work, she was also careful to maintain artistic control, even to the point of dictating the terms of her own marketing campaigns. As Bockris notes, it was Smith who came up with the line “three-chord rock merged with the power of the word” and who pushed for the “beyond gender” tag (1998). The singer also ensured that the contract recognize her right to exercise control over the production of her records. This clause, as we shall see, would prove decisive during the recording
of
Horses
. Smith’s deal with Arista was announced by John Rockwell in
The New York Times
on Friday, March 28, 1975. Reviewing one of the CBGBs shows, Rockwell predicted a glittering future for Davis’s new star: “Miss Smith has it in her to be as significant an artist as American pop music has produced.” Sensing a change in the air, the esteemed critic urged “that anyone who wants to see Miss Smith in the ambience in which she has heretofore flourished—the seedy little club—had better hurry on down to CBGB.” Protected, for now, from the grosser aspects of record company interference, throughout the following month Smith and her band continued to play sets in the Bowery, appearing, as always, alongside Television. Still without a drummer, the three instrumentalists continued, in Rockwell’s words, to supply a “compensating percussiveness.”

A live recording from the WBAI studio in New York City, dated May 28, presents what may well have been the last incarnation of the four-piece Patti Smith band. Opening with the customary “We’re Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together,” the show highlights Smith’s ease with her newfound position as rock’s premier great white hope; the between-songs banter is worth the price of admission alone. The set is notable for several startling performances: a shorter, sharply focused “Birdland” and a rhythmically assured “Redondo Beach” showcase the guitar interplay of Kaye and Kral, while Smith’s voice throughout is rich and secure, a stride away from the chanted monotone of her early performances. While the concluding “Land” builds more exactingly on the sacrificial imagery explored in earlier performances, with Smith urging herself to “move forward, move forward,” the most accomplished number is undoubtedly “Break It Up.” Inspired by
a dream about Jim Morrison, which Smith, with Verlaine’s help, had documented the previous December, the song is delicately performed, with Smith and the musicians intuiting the subtle dynamics of the piece.