{"id":75446,"date":"2025-09-20T15:04:25","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/75446\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T15:04:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:04:25","slug":"after-the-taylor-swift-song-what-made-me-happy-was-that-kids-were-buying-dylan-thomas-books-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/75446\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018After the Taylor Swift song, what made me happy was that kids were buying\u00a0Dylan Thomas books\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patti Smith<\/a> had no idea she was about to have a starring role on a Taylor Swift album until the singer got in touch in the spring of 2024. \u201cI don\u2019t know her, but she recorded a lot of her work at Electric Lady, where I have done so much work, and through the studio she sent me a message and let me know that my name would be on her record \u2013 but that it was in a respectful way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swift<\/a> was reaching out before the release of her album The Tortured Poets Department \u2013 laid down at the same New York recording studio<\/a> where Smith assembled Horses, her punk-poetry masterpiece from 1975. As soon as Smith heard the title track she understood why Swift had tipped her off. \u201cYou\u2019re not Dylan Thomas, I\u2019m not Patti Smith,\u201d Swift sings on the chorus. \u201cThis ain\u2019t the Chelsea Hotel, we\u2019re modern idiots.\u201d<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s biggest pop star wasn\u2019t throwing their names about at random. Thomas<\/a> and Smith are two of the great poetic voices of the 20th century. Both were also residents of the Chelsea, a scuzzy dive that served as the spiritual headquarters of the New York avant-garde back when the city was a place where artists could slum it on a shoestring.<\/p>\n

As Swift appreciated, Smith is shorthand for the New York of the mid-1970s, when she was an edgy new voice on the downtown scene, an artist who combined poetry and punk and whose music pulsated with both wisdom and danger. But is she a tortured poet? Not on the morning The Irish Times catches up with her over the phone from Paris.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that made me happy after that [Taylor Swift] song came out was that so many people, young kids, were buying Dylan Thomas. I thought that was a nice thing,\u201d she says. \u201cAny time that younger generations acknowledge our presence \u2013 they\u2019ll stop me on the street \u2013 I feel happy. It\u2019s a privilege to have young people interested in your work, as it\u2019s such a big field \u2013 and because of the internet and everything else, there\u2019s so much that is accessible.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a crisp day in France, Smith is relieved to be away from the madness of the United States \u2013 the right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk was shot<\/a> and fatally wounded the previous night \u2013 and looking forward to a productive autumn. <\/p>\n

In October she goes on the road for a series of concerts to mark the 50th anniversary of Horses, one of the most essential albums in the history of alternative music, its influence magnified by its cover shot of Smith, as an androgynous-looking 28-year-old, gazing mysteriously at the camera. (The haunting image was taken by her former lover Robert Mapplethorpe<\/a>, the photographer.)<\/p>\n

At 78 she is fighting fit and looking forward to the tour, which begins at 3Arena in Dublin. It is followed, a month later, by a new memoir, Bread of Angels. Her publisher set the date of November 4th not knowing that it was both the birthday of Mapplethorpe, who died of Aids-related complications in 1989, and the anniversary of the death of her husband, the MC5 guitarist Fred \u201cSonic\u201d Smith, who died of heart failure in 1994, aged 46.<\/p>\n

\"PattiPatti Smith in New York’s Central Park for a rally on May 11th, 1975 marking the end of the war in Vietnam. Photograph: Teresa Zabala\/The New York Time) <\/p>\n

The birthday of Horses has crept up on Smith: was it really 50 years ago? She is struck, she says, by how little the US has progressed in the intervening half-century. In 1975 the country was reeling from Watergate and the aftermath of Vietnam. Society was divided and fearful. Fast-forward to 2025 and she wonders if anything has changed. Things certainly haven\u2019t got any better.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s much worse,\u201d she says. \u201cI mean, in 1975 the war in Vietnam had ended, so that was one of the things we were most concerned with. We had lost Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. It was the atmosphere for our culture. It was very bad for our generation trying to rebuild after all of these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Half a century on it\u2019s clear that the US didn\u2019t rebuild. It only went downhill. \u201cAs bad as anything might have been, it\u2019s nothing compared to the climate of the world now and what\u2019s happening in my country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith made Horses when she was still working out what sort of artist she wanted to be. Raised in a lower-middle-class rural town in southern New Jersey, she came to New York seeking to establish herself as a poet. A chance meeting with the guitarist Lenny Kaye was followed by acclaimed shows at the counterculture hotspots CBGBs and Max\u2019s Kansas City. The buzz attracted the attention of Clive Davis, the head of Arista Records, who offered her a deal on the spot.<\/p>\n

Davis had discovered Janis Joplin and Bruce Springsteen, and he saw Smith as a similar sort of artist: someone who could move units but was so much more than a mere entertainer. Offered her pick of producers for her first album, she chose John Cale<\/a> of The Velvet Underground, partly because of his record in avant-garde music and partly because of how impressive his cheekbones had looked on the cover of Fear, his 1974 LP.<\/p>\n

They butted heads in the studio, but the sparks threw up one of the great albums of the era. Starting with a tempestuous cover of Van Morrison<\/a> and Them\u2019s Gloria \u2013 Smith introduced a new opening line, \u201cJesus died for somebody\u2019s sins but not mine\u201d \u2013 Horses is powered by Smith\u2019s incredible voice, an instrument both wise and raw, and balanced between a croon and a screech.<\/p>\n

At the project\u2019s heart is the three-part song cycle Land, a nine-minute-plus epic \u2013 often referred to as Horses, after its first segment \u2013 that builds and builds before exploding into one of the greatest needle drops of the 1970s. To Smith it feels as if it all happened yesterday.<\/p>\n

\n

When you\u2019re outspoken, when you speak out against certain government policies or nationalistic politics, you\u2019re going to get punished in certain ways<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s strange to listen to this record that for me \u2013 you know, it was 50 years, like, half a century. I still have a sense of that. It\u2019s not like I think, well, who was she?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I\u2019ve evolved quite a bit from that. I\u2019ve had a lot of different thoughts \u2013 even different thoughts about Jesus\u2019s teachings, all kinds of things. But that stampeding energy that I felt when I was young, I still have it within me. I feel the same rage against injustice. One feels almost like we\u2019re standing in a circle of injustice. It\u2019s all around us. Listening to my younger self reminds me to be very strong and continue on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith takes inspiration from younger artists determined to make their voices heard. She notes that Irish musicians have been to the fore in speaking out about Gaza<\/a>, in particular the Derry-Belfast rap trio Kneecap<\/a>. She sees them as revolutionaries in the tradition of the greats she grew up listening to.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in the time of Elvis Presley, back in the time of Little Richard, rock\u2019n\u2019roll was a revolution. It was not a revolution with guns. It was not a revolution that killed people. It was a revolution of new energy. It was a cultural revolution that, at its height and at its best, no matter how corny people think it is, promoted peace and love. Jimi Hendrix: what did he preach? Peace and love. What did John Lennon preach? Peace and love.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0A week with Kneecap: \u2018Liam \u00d3g doesn\u2019t like much attention. This is quite a lot of heat for him\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Rock\u2019n\u2019roll was meant to be revolutionary, Smith says. If some listeners find that offensive or over the top, well, so it goes. That\u2019s part of the musician\u2019s job description.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice that it entertains people. That\u2019s great. What Kneecap is doing is what we do, what we\u2019ve always done. If sometimes we step a bit far, sometimes you have to … be strong to let people know what you\u2019re saying. Whether it\u2019s too strong for you or whatever, the heart of it is social injustice. So the heart of it is humanitarian, a love of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s connection to Ireland goes back decades. In 1976, when Horses was becoming a hit, she visited Dublin, reciting poetry in a church where the audience included a young Larry Mullen<\/a>, of U2. Bono<\/a> later wrote her a fan letter, describing her music as his \u201cdrug of choice\u201d. <\/p>\n

She remembers first encountering U2\u2019s music in the mid-1980s, when she had taken time away from the industry to raise her son and daughter. Out shopping one day, she heard Bono singing over the tannoy and was engrossed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing, because in 1979 I left public life. I was very disconnected with what was happening, musically, living quietly and starting a family. And I remember clearly being in a supermarket by myself, buying food. They had music pumped back then through a radio or something.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe song came on: I Still Haven\u2019t Found What I\u2019m Looking For. I stopped in the middle of this big grocery store and listened to it. I thought it\u2019s a really good song: whoever that is is going to be big. They were already big, but I didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was a fan. She soon discovered the feeling was mutual. \u201cU2 has been very good to our band. We opened for them at Madison Square Garden. Bono opened his home to Tony and I,\u201d she says, referring to her long-time bassist, Tony Shanahan. \u201cTony and I\u2019ve stayed there and met all kinds of poets, and Glen Hansard, and all different musicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PattiPatti Smith in 1975. Photograph: Arista Records <\/p>\n

Smith was also an admirer of the late Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor<\/a>, whom she invited to play when she curated the Meltdown festival in London in 2005. As two outspoken women artists, they had much in common, including unhappy experiences on Saturday Night Live. <\/p>\n

The US comedy institution banned O\u2019Connor for life after she ripped a portrait of Pope John Paul II in two during an appearance on the programme in 1992.<\/p>\n

Smith had a similar experience a decade and a half earlier: in 1976 Saturday Night Live had booked her to perform her cover of The Who\u2019s My Generation. (The somewhat unlikely guest host was Ron Nessen, the press secretary of Gerald Ford, the US president at the time.) <\/p>\n

Before she went on, executives had politely encouraged her to drop the song\u2019s lyric \u201cI don\u2019t need their f**king shit\u201d. She agreed to change the line to \u201cI don\u2019t need no censorship\u201d \u2013 but was struck by the intensely hierarchical and corporate nature of a programme that billed itself as anarchic and anti-establishment, and she resolved never to return.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve never seen me back, have you? I have guidelines. I didn\u2019t say any bad words on Saturday Night Live. But showing any kind of independence on that show … I mean, yes, the show was so funny. They had the greatest people at the time \u2013 John Belushi and Gilda Radner and Bill Murray. But the top, the management, of that show were so uptight.\u201d <\/p>\n

Exactly how uptight was made clear to O\u2019Connor in 1992. \u201cNo matter what, the mainstream is always going to be censoring anyone with independent ideas,\u201d Smith says. \u201cTo me, what she did on Saturday Night Live … She was [always] so strong, speaking the truth about the famine or the Palestinian people. In the end, she is beloved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking truth carries a price, Smith says. \u201cI\u2019m not a mainstream artist in America. I\u2019m more popular in Europe than in America. When you\u2019re outspoken, when you speak out against certain government policies or nationalistic politics, you\u2019re going to get punished in certain ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horses changed Smith\u2019s life. It also made her an unlikely fashion icon. Mapplethorpe\u2019s instantly recognisable photograph of Smith \u2013 a bulletproof punk radiating cosmic quantities of nonchalance, ready to take on the world \u2013 made it one of the most recognisable of record covers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Smith has a different response when she looks at the sleeve: she sees a vulnerable kid from the sticks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was how I dressed. I was always a Peter Pan kid. Never wanted to grow up. That\u2019s all the cover is. People see it as very strong. I look at it and I can still feel my relationship with Robert, my friendship. And my own vulnerabilities. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo me it\u2019s not just an expression of strength. It\u2019s an expression of all things. We are both strong and vulnerable. I\u2019m very happy and proud of the fact that people still are moved by Robert\u2019s photograph. It was a very honest photograph. We just took it. Robert was not analytic. I wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t trying to say anything except to be myself. That\u2019s the one thing I\u2019ve always demanded \u2013 I just want to be myself.\u201d <\/p>\n

Patti Smith plays 3Arena, Dublin, on Monday, October 6th. The 50th-anniversary edition of Horses is released on Friday, October 10th. Bread of Angels: A Memoir is published by Bloomsbury on November 4th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patti Smith had no idea she was about to have a starring role on a Taylor Swift album…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[26778,3377,52,51270,18,117,2215,3761,19,17,51272,4066,51273,51269,51271,944,973,26706],"class_list":{"0":"post-75446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-3arena","9":"tag-bono","10":"tag-dublin","11":"tag-dylan-thomas","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-for-you","15":"tag-gaza-strip","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-john-cale","19":"tag-kneecap","20":"tag-larry-mullen","21":"tag-patti-smith","22":"tag-robert-mapplethorpe","23":"tag-sinead-oconnor","24":"tag-taylor-swift","25":"tag-van-morrison"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}