POP MUSIC : Remembering the Radical Punk-Poet Smith

Christ died for somebody’s sins, but not mine. Patti Smith earned my undivided attention with those words. It was the opening line of “Oath,� a poem that appeared in a 1971 issue of Creem magazine. Although it wasn’t set to music then, it nevertheless jumped off the page.

Ditto, a eulogy she wrote earlier on Janis Joplin in the teen mag Hullabaloo: “We are going to have to reinvent our heroes because they’re dying.� And since Janis, Jimi (Hendrix) and Jim (Morrison) were dead, it wasn’t surprising when Smith later wrote at the bottom of her review, “This is my last article.�

After her brief stint as a rock journalist, she joined forces with Lenny Kaye, also a rock critic. It was early performance poetry: she sang/chanted and he played electric guitar. They began to perform at St. Mark’s Church in the East Village, where I first saw them.

In mid-1977, I heard she had fallen off the stage and nearly killed herself during a concert in Tampa. Would Smith ironically become a rock ‘n’ roll casualty just like beloved Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin?

When she returned to the music scene, the punk/new-wave era was in full bloom. I was living in Texas, but on a summer trip to New York, I attended her comeback shows at CBGB’s, the East Village bastion of hip. There, she premiered an early version of “Rock and Roll Nigger,� which would later appear on her “Easter� album. The crowds were more skeptical than enthusiastic.

When we actually met in Austin, back in 1978, I was truly a Patti Smith fanatic. And since I was a friend of a friend, we became acquainted right away. Her ground-breaking album, “Easter� had just been released and “Because the Night� was in the Top 20.

In her hotel suite, we ate Mexican food and talked for hours about films, including “Privilege� and the movie’s theme--to which the Patti Smith group added the 23rd Psalm. She enthused about how the song struck her as a cautionary tale about what was happening to rock ‘n’ roll.

That evening Smith got on stage and played a guitar solo at Raul’s--the Austin equivalent of CBGB’s, where new wave/punk reigned supreme. Even though she didn’t sing because she had a concert the next night, she was a hit with everyone. It was evident that she wasn’t punk or new wave but actually the logical heir to another New York band, the Velvet Underground, (including feedback a la “Sister Ray� and narratives like “The Gift�).

Backstage the next night at the Texas Opera House, the group privately watched my copy of the Doors’ “Unknown Soldier� promo (videos, today) in which Jim Morrison does a evocative St. Sebastian bit complete with a surreal vomiting of blood on a bed of white roses. It moved Smith and the rest of the group intensely. After a brief silence that was almost religious, the band went out and played.

Smith made her entrance reciting her “Babelogue� incantations and took off like a whirling dervish into “Rock and Roll Nigger.� Austin hadn’t seen anything like it: a woman field marshal taking command of an American rock ‘n’ roll band.

But that evening wasn’t only devoted to rock drama. There were tender moments (a romantic version of the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby�) and even humor (Smith’s introduction of “a little Top 40 hit� led not to the expected “Because the Night,� but a passionate version of Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life�).

In July, 1979, she returned to Austin. She had changed. Her new album “Wave� had given fans several clues: the opening cut “Frederick� was dedicated to her clarinet teacher, Fred (Sonic) Smith and a quote from Rilke in the inner sleeve was further proof: “For one human being to love another, that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks; the work for which all other work is but preparation.� It was obvious: Smith was in love.

Perhaps that was the reason the group was tighter and stronger as a unit as they performed. Smith’s guitar solo with its veritable tempest of feedback opened with “So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star.� It brought down the house. They closed with their inspired version of Manfred Mann’s appropriate “1234: Wave.� Before the audience was finished waving, Smith was on a plane bound for Detroit.

I never thought it would end there. Over the past decade, when I’ve bumped into Lenny or Andi or Robert, I hear how happily married she is and that the group might get back again. Other hard-core fans haven’t been as kind: “Oh, Patti Lee and Fred Sonic sit around home in Motor City staring at their beer bottle collection. You know, she’s barefoot and pregnant.�

In November, 1980, a year after the group has disbanded, a bootleg Smith single appeared. It was a straight version of “White Christmas.� recorded during the “Wave� sessions. At the end of the song, Smith wished her fans a Merry Christmas. It seemed peculiar at the time, but looking back it was entirely within her persona and a logical extension after “Easter.�

Now, with the new album set to appear, the fan in me wonders if Smith will tour again. If she doesn’t, let’s hope Arista--besides putting her previous albums on compact disc--will gather all those concert cuts into a live album. In that manner, the youth of today can at least savor the vintage Patti Smith.