“Gloria” by Van Morrison

The woman’s name I’ve heard the second most today. Whose idea was it to name a hurricane after peoples’ names? Don’t they know that that will seriously ruin some great songs?

“Gloria” by Patti Smith 
(Words/Music: Van Morrison, Patti Smith, Album: Horses, Arista 1975)
 
In the mid-70s, an interesting phenomenon was happening in New York at 315 Bowery at a place called Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers - otherwise known as CBGB’s. That interesting thing involved people from the neighborhood and local colleges (like NYU and Columbia) getting together to play music. Some of these people included Richard Hell (and his band Television and later the Voivods), Debbie Harry (Blondie), Talking Heads, and the Ramones.

Then there was a fierce female poet from New Jersey named Patti Smith. Combining drama, poetry, and some intensely raw music, Smith grasped everyone’s attention with her songs and, with her introductory lines to the Them song “Gloria” - “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine,” she all but announced the birth of punk rock. Gone were the niceties of previous resistances - this was an all out rebellion and everyone was a potential target: government, religion, media, celebrity. No longer would these outcasts from the American Dream attempt to rise out of the filth of the cities - instead they would revel in it and celebrate it. It became a badge of honor to look beaten down, filthy, and out of place. One’s very existence became a reminder to the establishment that things were NOT alright. In the vanguard was Patti Smith.

More Patti Smith: AmazonMP3 - last.fm - AllMusic - eMusic

missworld:

Patti Smith - Gloria (1975)

“Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine…”

(Source: fuckyeahseventiesmusic)

“Gloria” by Patti Smith

(Words/Music: Patti Smith, Van Morrison, Album: Horses, Arista Records 1975)

New York City in the 1970s was a city which had been allowed to fester in filth and degradation for decades, falling from it’s once lofty stature as the world’s next great city to one of shame and embarrassment. People couldn’t walk through Central Park without being attacked; world famous Times Square was home base for junkies and prostitutes; and the police force was infamously corrupt. It was the city that Travis Bickle wanted to “flush down the fuckin’ toilet;” it was the city that spawned the second generation of New York School poets who were burned out junkies instead of hipster madmen; it was the city that eventually killed the messenger of peace and good will, John Lennon; it was the city that created Patti Smith. 

And “Gloria” was the first song on the first album by Patti Smith. One could say it’s how the world was introduced to Patti Smith, but that would be inaccurate. Instead, it’s more appropriate to say this is how Patti Smith crawled from the filth of New York City and into everyone’s lives. See, this song, and Patti Smith for that matter, always reminds me of New York City in the 70s (or at least as how I have always seen it portrayed).

To me, Smith picked up where Janis Joplin left off. Smith had Joplin’s passionate live performances, the ability to create and convey raw feeling (as opposed to perfectly constructed melodies), and a tendency for controversy and self-loathing. What Smith did that Joplin didn’t do, was bring a poetic sense of self to the songs she performed. While Joplin sang the blues about people doing bad things to her, Smith sang as if the bad things that happened were a deserved result of her actions. When she proclaims that “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine” she is creating a mindset that would help found the punk rock movement: that some people aren’t worth saving. With all of her faults and self-destructive behavior, Joplin still believed that things would be better (even if the path was through a bottle of Southern Comfort); Patti Smith did not share that optimism. How could she? Living in NYC at that time, she saw a city with no hope, no future, and no love. Just meaningless relationships like the one she wanted to have with “G-L-O-R-I-A.”

More Patti Smith: AmazonMP3 - last.fm - AllMusic - eMusic

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