Patti Smith was punk rock in the sense that she was direct: she drew a clear distinction between artifice and the artificial, channeling her pretensions into full throttle blast of emotional energy that makes your chest feel like a kick drum every time you hear it. She has a lot of great songs, and at least two classic albums to her credit in 1975's Horses and 1978's Easter. On the latter resides my favorite track and her biggest hit, "Because the Night", co-written with Bruce Springsteen (who would perform the song in concert but never released a studio version of his own), and best known to people under 30 as a threatening-as-Ikea cover version perpetrated by 10,000 Maniacs on MTV's Unplugged.
Smith's version, which rose to #13 on the U.S. charts, remains definitive, principally because she acts the song rather than sings it: each phrase comes from some indefinite spot between Patti's solar plexus and her brain and radiates from there. She's a soul singer not in the genre sense but vis a vis her delivery. "Because the Night" conveys a lot of sentiments our affectless generation would rather express in circumlocutions:
Have I doubt when I'm aloneAmerica has nothing to fear from strong women, but I will take Patti Smith over Hillary Clinton any day just because Hillary's a little too indie rock for my tastes.
Love is a ring, the telephone
Love is an angel disguised as lust
Here in our bed until the morning comes
Come on now try and understand
The way I feel under your command
Take my hand as the sun descends
They cant touch you now,
Cant touch you now, cant touch you now
Because the night belongs to lovers ...
