Patti Smith is the grandmother of punk, of ladies in rock, of alt rock, of anyone who makes a concept album out of their personal poetry and open wounds. I love her 1975 debut album, Horses, which is equal parts pain, spoken word, and the craziest cover of "Land of a Thousand Dances." For her 2007 album, Twelve, Patti basically deconstructs everyone from Paul Simon to the Beatles.
Before that, in 2002, she covered Prince's theatrical bombastic hit "When Doves Cry." I love this cover for its calculated yearning, its understated pathos. Patti starts out disinterested, the backing music circular and lowkey, like a downbeat version of Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It." But as the song progresses, Patti's voice breaks, falls, raises, cries out like a wraith bent upon sharing its pain with the world. Patti is not the best singer, rather, her talent is that of the Everywoman, of the person standing on the other side of your screen door sharing her world. But with more art, more depth of experience than you've ever heard. This song simmers and boils and burns your hands - she turns Prince's song inside out, leaving behind the sweeping churches of his song for a dark club where you can't see her, but you can hear a voice that speaks from the shadows.
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