walking upstream…
Patti Smith
photo: harald krichel · cc by-sa 4.0 ↗Patti Smith
Patti Smith arrived from New Jersey by way of poetry, fusing Rimbaud's incantations with rock and roll's raw nerve to invent a template for punk's literary wing. She has spoken of Bob Dylan as the artist who first convinced her she could become one herself, of the Rolling Stones' televised swagger as a jolt of sexual and rebellious awakening, and of the Velvet Underground's mythic shadow — glimpsed mostly through photographs before she enlisted their alumnus John Cale to produce her debut. Horses, her 1975 landmark, transmuted all three inheritances into something entirely her own.
the sound in question
1978
Because the NightPatti Smith
walk the tributaries ↓
Bob Dylan1960s · Folk / Folk rock / Rock
Smith has said Dylan was practically her imaginary boyfriend as a teenager and the living proof that a poet could also be a rock and roll star — that conviction became the engine behind her own genre-blurring, spoken-sung incantations.
listen: upstream & here
1965
Like a Rolling StoneBob Dylan
1975
LandPatti Smith
listen forListen to the tumbling, accusatory torrent of Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," then Smith's own nine-minute odyssey "Land" — both let a restless, literary voice ride a rock band rather than sit politely inside a verse-chorus structure.
The Rolling Stones1960s-70s · Rock / Blues rock / Hard rock
Smith has recalled watching the Rolling Stones on television as a teenager as a kind of sexual and rebellious awakening, and that raw, sneering swagger surfaces in the harder-rocking, confrontational side of her own catalog.
listen: upstream & here
1965
(I Can't Get No) SatisfactionThe Rolling Stones
1976
Ain't It StrangePatti Smith
listen forCompare the Stones' brattish, riff-driven defiance on "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" with the snarling attack of Smith's "Ain't It Strange" — both trade politeness for pure rock and roll insolence.
The Velvet Underground1960s · Art rock / Proto-punk / Experimental rock
Smith knew the Velvet Underground mostly through photographs and secondhand mythology before their breakup, but their downtown art-rock cool shaped her sense of what New York rock could sound like — and she brought former Velvet John Cale in to produce Horses, tying that lineage directly into her own record.
listen: upstream & here
1967
I'm Waiting for the ManThe Velvet Underground
1975
Free MoneyPatti Smith
listen forSet the hypnotic, drone-driven urgency of the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man" against the propulsive, garage-rock churn of Smith's "Free Money" — both ride a simple riff into something incantatory and streetwise.