In Damnation of...Horses by Patti Smith

i think people maybe expect something radical or strange from this record, given the hype. and it is sometimes(eg birdland).

So does that make Horses the best album recorded by someone with a vagina (or is there another connection between these artists that I am missing)?

(I nominate anything by the Cramps)

Bahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

None of 'em are, except in terms of sales and giving college kids something new to toss up on their walls, not to mention aged rock critics something to stroke their chins over and pontificate at length about the new sounds in r'n'r/hip hop, what have you.

I can't even get through the other three even halfway.

She contributed to one of the 5 or 6 decent songs REM managed to put together over their shabby past ten years, plus 3

Blue Oyster Cult! plus 25.

But I still don't like her so much, at least Horses I mean.

and then she sings about doing the watusi and joe going to mexico and it all balances out. Everybody wins!

Hmmm. I guess you had to be there.

(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses, hey Horses)
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses, hey Horses)
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses, hey Horses)
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses)
Hey Horses!
You´ve been around all night and that´s a little long
You think you´ve got the right but I think you´ve got it wrong
Why can´t you say goodnight so you can take me home, Horses
´Cause when you say you will, it always means you won´t
You´re givin´ me the chills, baby, please baby don´t
Every night you still leave me all alone, Horses
Oh Horses, what a pity you don´t understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand
Oh Horses, you´re so pretty, can´t you understand
It´s guys like you Horses
Oh, what you do Horses, do Horses
Don´t break my heart, Horses
Hey Horses!
Now when you take me by the - who´s ever gonna know
Everytime you move I let a little more show
There´s somethin´ we can use, so don´t say no, Horses
So come on and give it to me any way you can
Any way you wanna do it, I´ll take it like a man
Oh please, baby, please, don´t leave me in the jam, Horses
Oh Horses, what a pity you don´t understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand
Oh Horses, you´re so pretty, can´t you understand
It´s guys like you Horses
Oh, what you do Horses, do Horses
Don´t break my heart, Horses
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses, hey Horses)
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses, hey Horses)
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses, hey Horses)
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses)
Oh Horses, what a pity you don´t understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand
Oh Horses, you´re so pretty, can´t you understand
It´s guys like you Horses
Oh, what you do Horses, do Horses
Don´t break my heart, Horses
Oh Horses, what a pity you don´t understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand
Oh Horses, you´re so pretty, can´t you understand
It´s guys like you Horses
Oh, what you do Horses, do Horses
Don´t break my heart, Horses
Oh Horses, what a pity you don´t understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand
Oh Horses, you´re so pretty, can´t you understand
It´s guys like you Horses
Oh, what you do Horses, do Horses
Don´t break my heart, Horses
Oh Horses, what a pity you don´t understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand
Oh Horses, you´re so pretty, can´t you understand
It´s guys like you Horses
Oh, what you do Horses, do Horses
Don´t break my heart, Horses

You know, those of us who have loved this record, either back in the day, or since (although especially back-in-the-day), simply cannot ditch its brilliance just because there's now a backlash to its canonisation.

That's what I think, anyway.

I mean, "pretentious"? WTF? Not only is "pretentious" not a pejorative, but with Leonard Cohen cited as an example of same, we're s'posed to somehow accept this bizarre conclusion? Len is also great, people!!!

There's something in that each-subsequent-record-gets-worse thing, though.

Easter is a very nice record (moments of beauty, but moments of intense awkwardness) that's not in the ballpark of Horses in terms of impact. Importance. Sigh. I don't really understand what "importance" means, objectively. Having said that, Gone Again is really the only other good Patti Smith album. Her output over a long career is patchy.

None of which takes away from the amazing Horses.

But wait... wasn't it canonized 'cause it was deemed "important"?

Some love it, some hate it, some are indifferent. What's the answer? A show of hands? This "important" thing seems kind of, well... silly.

Yeah, "You Can't Stop The Bum Rush" rules. I'd never established a connection between 'em and Patti Smith, but I guess "Horses" shares that chaotic throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks mood that that album has.

What? Oh, Cohen. He's great too. "The Essential" rocked my Spring of 2003.

Agreed on Pere Ubu recent stuff, them and Wire are really consistently great

i kinda love "we are the one" more than any patti song

I had never heard this before, it's good! (I don't particularly care about punk tbf)

(haha yeah I will pass on that other song)

"up there"

kesha is the patti smith of our generation, discuss

no

I'm pretty sure I prefer Radio Ethiopia to Horses actually. Easter I've never got into if only because the song mentioned above is so collossally misguided and wrongheaded.

i thought it was pretty badass when i was younger, and musically it still is, but yeah

It's actually interesting that the Patti Smith and Frank Zappa threads are going on at the same time. Both kind of interesting, smart people from the 60s and 70s (respectively) who weren't quite up to transcending their times. I like her more than him, but that's just personal taste.

Did Patti ever have any difficult interaction with Weird Al or his band? Because then that would tie this thread with the Zappa thread and the Prince RIP thread as well.

Or else we could just discuss her jazz bonafides for the same result

oh she has those in spades

Um...

there is a book from the 70's called Rock 100 that Lenny Kaye co-wrote and i know there is a Zappa entry, but i don't remember what they wrote about him.

I'd be willing to let it slide (like anyone cares lol) if it was just one incredibly stupid song from roughly the era of songs called "mongoloid"

don't drag Devo into this!

but yeah, for me, it's the cringe-inducing "skip this track" thing like with Morrissey's "Bengali in Platforms"

It's way more aggressively cringey than Bengali, though Bengali's core message is way worse and meaner, but like when I was young I didn't even have the cultural literacy to know what Bengali meant in UK culture plus the song kinda drifts by in a haze whereas RnRN is so instantly like damn white lady pump yr brakes on the n word

did she ever wear that lester bangs t-shirt? did lester bangs make that t-shirt? he had a lot of homemade t-shirts.

Remember when that was a viable business model? When I was a kid, I had a friend whose parents ran a T-shirt printing store. I remember my whole third or fourth grade class went on a field trip and we got T-shirts printed there, so they'd be able to keep track of us all. I don't remember where we went, but I remember the T-shirts. They were green.

Oh yeah, I got a Let It Be t-shirt that way, to name one, from one of those places where they had all the imprints up on the wall so you could pick one, choose your shirt size and color and then they would use a press iron to meld it all together. The last time I saw something like that was late 70s.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/12/bf/c5/12bfc552bc9624ac0819fab5248b1806.jpg

As mentioned a couple of times above "Piss Factory"/"Hey Joe" is really great - pretty much the only thing I'll return to (slightly surprised Penman didn't mention it).

And then her voice was sampled in a Dead C track in World Peace Hope Et Al. Its only a couple of mins long but its the only other time I cared.

Was enjoying listening to this this am, has a brief snippet of smith. Her magnetism is apparent (and yeah the assertion that she might be reacting against the beat lineage in any way is mildly baffling)