By the mid-’70s, Patti Smith started dating Blue Öyster Cult rhythm guitarist and keyboardist, Allen Lanier. The two were first introduced by the band’s producer and manager Sandy Pearlman, and connecting over music, they soon collaborated on one another’s albums.
Lanier went on to co-write and play guitar on “Elegie” and is also credited as a co-writer on “Kimberly” from Smith’s 1975 debut album Horses. Along with Smith, Lanier also worked with the Clash, the Dictators, Jim Carroll, and John Cale, outside of Blue Öyster Cult.
In 1973, Smith started writing and co-writing a series of songs that spanned five Blue Öyster Cult albums from the 1970s through the ’80s, including two released after she and Lanier’s split in 1979.
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[RELATED: Behind the 6 Songs Patti Smith Wrote for Blue Öyster Cult]
‘Tyranny and Mutation’
On Blue Öyster Cult’s second album Tyranny and Mutation from 1973, Smith contributed the sole song “Baby Ice Dog” that burst open on I had this bitch you see / She made lies to me.
Smith co-wrote the track with singer Eric Bloom and drummer Albert Bouchard.
‘Secret Treaties’
Smith continued collaborating with the band on their 1974 Secret Treaties. For this one, the band focused on the music and handed over the songwriting duties to Pearlman, rock critic Richard Meltzer, and Smith. Though most of the album was written by Meltzer and Pearlman, Smith contributed the opening “Career of Evil.”
Penetrating the proggier arrangement, Smith’s lyrics still read like poetry—Capture you, inject you, leave you kneeling in the rain / I choose to steal what you chose to show / And you know I will not apologize / Your mine for the taking / I’m making a career of evil.
‘Agents of Fortune’
The band’s fourth album, Agents of Fortune in 1976, included two more songs by Smith: “The Revenge of Vera Gemini” and the closing”Debbie Denise.” Both tracks were co-written with Bouchard.
More ominous, “The Revenge of Vera Gemini” follows a sinister woman with a face like an angel. Smith can be heard singing alongside Bloom throughout the song and opens the track in spoken word: You’re boned like a saint / With the consciousness of a snake.
“Debbie Denise” was a more true-to-life story of a woman left behind by a man on tour—I was out rollin’ with my band. Coincidentally, heavy touring led to Smith and Lanier’s break up. “Ultimately it destroyed our relationship, but not the respect I had for him,” wrote Smith of Lanier in her 2010 memoir Just Kids, “nor the gratitude I felt for the good he had done.”
[RELATED: How a Rock Critic Helped Write Blue Öyster Cult’s 1981 Hit “Burnin’ for You”]
‘Fire of the Unknown Origin’
After her breakup from Lanier, Smith started dating and married late MC5 guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith in 1980. Though she didn’t work on the Blue Öyster Cult’s next three albums—Spectres (1977), Mirrors (1979), and Cultösaurus Erectus (1980)—she regrouped with the band on their eighth album, Fire of the Unknown Origin. The 1981 album featured the band’s hit “Burnin’ for You,” which gave them a Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and went to No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock chart.
The opening title track, about an intense love—Swept to ruin off my wavelength, swallowed her up / Like the ocean in a fire, so thick and gray—was written by Smith and the band.
‘The Revölution by Night’
In 1983, Smith worked with Blue Öyster Cult one final time on the band’s ninth album, The Revölution by Night. Featuring guitarist Donald Roeser on vocals, Smith’s “Shooting Shark” was another song based on one of her poems. Released as the lead single, “Shooting Star” went to No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Mainstream Rock charts.
The Revölution by Night took a pop turn from the band’s heavier origins and was the first album that didn’t feature the original lineup of Blue Öyster Cult with the departure of Albert Bouchard in 1981.
Photo: Jorgen Angel/Redferns
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