Following up on my last Patti Smith post, I realized the other night that 2015 is the 40th anniversary of Smith’s debut classic, Horses. I’ve seen lots of notices in the news this year about the 40th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run which also came out in 1975, but I don’t think I’ve heard a word about Horses.
Of course, Smith doesn’t make a commercial breakthrough until her third album, Easter, which features “Because the Night” which the singer co-wrote with Springsteen. They’re both from New Jersey, after all. Nonetheless, in 1975 Horses was a cannon blast of a kind of poetic rock not heard since the best days of The Doors along with one of Smith’s heroes, Jim Morrison. Smith covers Morrison covering Them with the album’s opener, “Gloria.” Add the sublime “Redondo Beach” and the homoerotic poetics of “Horses” and you’ve got a debut album lots of folks will remember four decades on.
Here’s a bit from a Rolling Stone interview with Smith. Check out all the odd coincidences surrounding the release of the record and the life of another Smith hero, French poet Arthur Rimbaud…
“The exact date is November 10th, and I want to celebrate it in New York in a special way,” Smith tells Rolling Stone. “We have things we’ll be doing in Paris and London, everywhere, because it’s a true milestone. I’m proud to have a milestone like that.”
The significance of putting the album out on November 10th is something that still makes Smith laugh. Originally, she had planned to put Horses out on October 20th, what would have been 19th century French poet – and major Patti Smith inspiration – Arthur Rimbaud’s 121st birthday.
“Something happened because of the gas shortage – they didn’t have enough vinyl – and it was postponed and I was really upset,” she recalls. “Then [Arista Records founder] Clive Davis told me, ‘Really sorry, it’s going to be November 10th. There’s nothing we can do that.’ And I just laughed and said, ‘Well, that’s the anniversary of Rimbaud’s death.’ It was still magical.”
The singer says she’s looking forward to commemorating the record, which contained the single “Gloria” and many songs that have become concert staples like “Redondo Beach” and “Free Money.” “I think we continue to deliver all of these songs sometimes stronger than when I was young,” the 67-year-old says. “So I’m going to be happy to celebrate it, to perform the album with happiness, not with any kind of cynicism or a cashing-in thing. It will be a true, proud celebration, so the answer is yes.”
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