Music is full of esoteric artists the mainstream ignores, but sometimes history corrects what the audience missed. In the 1970s, Arista Records tried but failed to break Patti Smith into the mainstream, but the crowds weren’t open to her punk-edged garage rock nor her disregard for gender norms of the time. She wound up in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame anyway.
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Selfishly, it’s nice to have someone like Patti Smith as the rare poetic treasure she is. Her biggest fans are impressive: Bruce Springsteen (the actual Boss), U2, and Michael Stipe from R.E.M. are among many influenced by Smith and her group.
She is a writer first and a New York punk legend second. With a new sound unfolding, Smith and Television’s Tom Verlaine were part of the scene that convinced CBGB to book bands other than the genres in its initialism. CBGB’s country, bluegrass, and blues acts were accompanied by poetry readings, attracting Smith and Verlaine, who were at the intersection of literature and garage rock in the early days of punk in New York City.
[RELATED: Behind the Iconic and Androgynous ‘Horses’ Album Cover by Patti Smith]
Punk Rock Poet
Poets were the original punks. William Blake, for example, was considered a madman in his lifetime, using the beauty of language to challenge existing power structures. Poetry and loud guitars are the natural evolution from Blake to Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Smith.
Musicians Lenny Kaye, Jay Dee Daugherty, Ivan Kral, and Richard Sohl completed the Patti Smith Group. Clive Davis signed them to Arista after a run of shows with Television. Like Television, they didn’t sound like the other bands at CBGB—mixing punk minimalism, avant-garde, and art rock with poetry.
Arista gave Smith complete creative control, but it also resulted in commercial failure. After recording her third album, Easter, with Springsteen’s engineer, Jimmy Iovine, Smith had a commercial breakthrough with Easter’s lead single, “Because the Night,” an unfinished song Springsteen recorded early in his sessions for Darkness on the Edge of Town.
Aiming for continued success, Todd Rundgren produced the group’s next album, Wave. Rundgren produced Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell, one of the best-selling albums of all time, and Arista hoped to find greater commercial success with Smith’s gradual move to radio-oriented songs. Smith and Kaye had high-minded ideals of connecting with kids, and Arista Records was a lifeline to their audience. Consequently, they made a business decision to create something more accessible.
L.A.’s Poet
For “Dancing Barefoot,” Smith was inspired by another rock poet, Jim Morrison from The Doors. She sings the verses in a low register, echoing Morrison’s baritone, arranging a masculine verse and a feminine chorus.
She is benediction
She is addicted to thee
She is the root connection
She is connecting with he
Smith wrote on her website that the song expresses “the love of one human being for another and the love of one’s creator.” The implied symbolism of corporeal “she” and God crosses humans with the divine.
The song’s chorus references the feminine hero, but the record label mistook “heroine” for the drug heroin. They asked Smith to change the lyrics out of fear the public might think she’s singing about drugs. However, Smith refused the change, accepting the commercial failure accompanying listeners’ homophonous confusion.
I’m dancing barefoot
Heading for a spin
Some strange music draws me in
Makes me come on like some heroine
The Heroine
She added a blurb to the album sleeve, “Dedicated to the rites of the heroine,” putting an exclamation point on her intention. However, radio stations—skittish about pushing a perceived drug reference—ignored the song. In the liner notes, Smith dedicated the song to Jeanne Hébuterne, the mistress of Amedeo Modigliani, an Italian painter and sculptor. Hébuterne, eight months pregnant, committed suicide two days after Modigliani’s death in 1920.
As “Dancing Barefoot” nears its end, Smith, recalling Morrison, recites her poetry. Underneath stanzas pulled from earlier works, she repeats Oh God, I fell for You, searching for an understanding of the mysteries of life with a foot firmly in the soil and a hand reaching for something higher.
The plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face
The mystery of childbirth, of childhood itself
Grave visitations
What is it that calls to us?
Smith co-wrote the song with Ivan Kral, who previously played guitar with Blondie. Kral later worked with Iggy Pop after the Patti Smith Group disbanded in 1979.
Elevation
The best-known example of a rock band’s curiosity about the divine intersecting with human affairs is U2. The Irish band covered “Dancing Barefoot” as a B-side to “When Love Comes to Town” in 1989. On Rattle and Hum, U2 had set their sights on America, duetting with B.B. King at Sun Studios in Memphis. Smith may not be a mainstream artist, but she’s an important part of American culture.
The Big Bang
Smith was there with the Ramones and others at the birth of punk rock. Completing the whole circle, large-scale moments of life, “In a Little While” by U2 is the last song Joey Ramone heard before he died. Bono said Joey Ramone turned a song about a hangover into a hymn.
“Dancing Barefoot” is Smith’s hymn, and it may not have sold many records, but it speaks to the beauty and mystery of life. And the symbolic poetry of life and the beginnings of punk rock, where the arc rested momentarily at the deathbed of Joey Ramone, is cosmically profound. Sometimes, even words elude this kind of poetry; only music can express the splendor. Moreover, the sentiment of “Dancing Barefoot” and the childlike innocence of one dancing with bare feet is a helpful reminder of the necessity of humility. There’s nothing more punk rock than aiming a middle finger at ego.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images
