“Jesus died for somebody’s sins,
But not mine..”
This day 50 years ago, Patti Smith released her groundbreaking debut album “Horses” (10 November, 1975) and music thankfully was never the same since.
The album went on to become the most influential and important release of the Punk-Rock movement, in fact it is quoted as not just being the album held on the punk-pedestal but one of the true artistic statements in twentieth-century music.
What separates “Horses” from other releases of the day is down to the intelligence in the songs of Smith, a deeper meaning not usually associated with punk, poetry set to the sound of rage and delivered with a snarling-venomous voice and three chords played exceptionally loud.
New York and in particular CBGB’s quickly became her battlefield and the birthplace of a legend, “Horses” was born out of the frustration and the pain Smith felt in the loss of the dominant, otherworldly rock stars such as Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
“All I ever wanted, since I was a child, was to do something wonderful”.
The album opens with a quiet moment of self-realization, that slowly gathers tempo, “Gloria” a track recorded originally recorded by Them and then The Doors and it is Morrison’s version she claims here, a slice of power and angst as producer John Cale steered the runaway train from leaving the tracks.
Across the albums eight-tracks all avenues are explored in full, from gender to violence, the influence “Horses” cast is heard in the music of Siouxsie And The Banshees, The Smith’s, R.E.M, The Slits and PJ Harvey who all owe a debt to the electric troubadour.
But her arrival on the music scene was exactly what Punk needed, with inspired lyrics similar to the folk-rock crossover that erupted ten years before when Dylan turned electric she blended aggression with intuitive words that rang in the ears of the listeners making nobody feel alone.
“In the sheets
There was a man
Dancing around
To the simple
Rock & roll
Song”
Horses (Original 1975 Track Listing)
Gloria
Redondo Beach
Birdland
Free Money
Kimberly
Break It Up
Land: Horses/Land Of A Thousand Dances/La Mer (De)
Elegie
DISCOGS
[KB]
