random friday, 1975 edition: patti smith, gloria

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

Prior to the release of her first album, Patti Smith released a single with “Hey Joe” as the A-side. Her version doesn’t age well … she imagines a revolutionary Patty Hearst in the title role … and the single is now best remembered for Smith’s first great song, the B-side, “Piss Factory.” But “Hey Joe” hinted at what was to come. Smith took a classic rock tune that had been recorded countless times, kept the basic theme, changed most of the words, added her own poetry, and grounded it all in equal parts of love for poems and rock & roll.

Van Morrison’s “Gloria” is a true rock classic, a fired-up piece of raunch with a great vocal, an irresistible sing-along chorus, and some “dirty” lyrics that sound extremely tame today (“and then she comes to my room”), but which admittedly sound pretty nasty when Van the Man sings them. (If you think I’m kidding about how lyrics were treated in those days, note that some stations wouldn’t play Them’s version of the song because of those seven words … when the Shadows of Knight knocked off an inferior version that replaced the part where she came to his room, it got played on the radio, no problem.)

So, what does Patti Smith do with this song of such elemental greatness? Starts with poetry, of course! A soft piano and bass open the track, and then Patti sings:

Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine
Meltin' in a pot of thieves
Wild card up my sleeve
Thick heart of stone
My sins my own
They belong to me, me

The guitar and drums join in, and a slow build up begins:

People say “beware!”
But I don't care
The words are just
Rules and regulations to me, me

Now we’re getting chords from the guitar … the song is gradually getting louder. The tempo picks up, and we start getting a hint of the Morrison original:

I walk in a room, you know I look so proud
I'm movin' in this here atmosphere, where anything's allowed
And I go to this here party and I just get bored
Until I look out the window, see a sweet young thing
Humpin' on the parking meter, leanin' on the parking meter
Oh, she looks so good, oh, she looks so fine
And I got this crazy feeling and then I'm gonna ah ah make her mine
Ooh I'll put my spell on her

Sometimes a woman will sing a song written by a man, without changing the gender of the pronouns, and people say “whoa, how transgressive, she’s singing to a woman!” Most of the time, at least in the days of classic rock, it was treated as the singer being true to the song … no one really thought she wanted the woman. But Patti Smith has taken over from Morrison, she’s changing the words, hell, she isn’t using his words at all yet, and damn, she wants to make that sweet young thing her own:

Here she comes
Walkin' down the street
Here she comes
Comin' through my door
Here she comes
Crawlin' up my stair
Here she comes
Waltzin' through the hall
In a pretty red dress
And oh, she looks so good, oh, she looks so fine
And I got this crazy feeling that I'm gonna ah ah make her mine

The intensity of the music increases to match the intensity in the lyrics and in Smith’s performance. She still hasn’t gotten around to Morrison’s actual lyrics, but is there any doubt what song this is? And Patti ain’t no Shadows of Knight … this woman is gonna come to her room:

And then I hear this knockin' on my door
Hear this knockin' on my door
And I look up into the big tower clock
And say, “oh my God here's midnight!”
And my baby is walkin' through the door
Leanin' on my couch she whispers to me and I take the big plunge
And oh, she was so good, oh, she was so fine
And I'm gonna tell the world that I just ah-ah made her mine

To be honest, by this point, I’m not sure Patti has “made her mine” … if anything, it’s the other way around. And at this point of expectation, as we wait to see what will happen next, as the band kicks it into the highest gear … it’s at this point that Patti finally calls on Morrison’s lyrics. It’s the time for release:

I said darling, tell me your name, she told me her name
She whispered to me, she told me her name
And her name is, and her name is, and her name is, and her name is
G
L
O
R
I I I I I I I I
G-L-O-R-I-A
Gloria!
G-L-O-R-I-A
Gloria!
G-L-O-R-I-A
Gloria!
G-L-O-R-I-A
Gloria!

Patti and Gloria are one. When other women call out to Patti, she thinks only of the big tower clock chiming “DING DONG DING DONG!” and she’s back to taking the big plunge with Gloria. And then:

And the tower bells chime, “DING DONG!” they chime
They're singing, “Jesus died for somebody's sins … but not mine.”

And that, dear producers of Glee, is how to do a cover version.

Here’s the song, no video, if you missed it somehow back in 1975:

Here’s a rather druggy version from 1979, that manages to go on for ten minutes while leaving out an entire verse:

A 2007 version … she’s 60 years old in this one, folks. As one YouTube commentator said, “Can I have her for my grandmother?”

Here she is, being interviewed by Tom Snyder in 1978:

And, last but not least, here she is in 1979, singing “You Light Up My Life” on a kids’ TV show with the composer, Joseph Brooks. I saw her sing this in the 70s … no Joe Brooks at that one, though:

(I don’t usually quote so many lyrics in these posts, but this is Patti Smith we’re talking about. Just in case it’s not obvious, the above lyrics are copyright Patti Smith.)

Comments

[Charlie Bertsch]

What a fabulous post, Steven! You capture what I've felt without being able to articulate. It also occurs to me, now reading this, that her relation to Van Morrison's original is a sort of a miniature allegory of what would become punk's relation to 60s garage rock.

[Steven Rubio]

That's interesting ... by 1975, Morrison had left his own garage rock roots far behind. Well, he'd done it long before that, but you know what I mean. He got from garage rock to Celtic soul and mystic imagery pretty quickly.

[Tomás]

That last clip is crazy.