The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Patti Smith · produced by John Cale · Arista · about 43 minutes
Mode
Garage rock and the long rock incantation, with spoken and improvised verse set at the centre rather than between the songs
Mythos
Possession and passage: a boy violated who passes through a vision of horses into the sea; a son taken up toward his dead father; a sinner who refuses the sacrifice
Phase
Eight tracks on two sides built in parallel, each a song that opens, a shorter song, a long improvised piece third and a short close, moving from a refusal of redemption to a lament
Presentation
Album; eight tracks, about forty-three minutes, released by Arista in November 1975, with a cover photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe
Register
A voice from speech to chant to cry, multitracked into two or three at once; piano, a plain garage band, a reggae lilt and lounge piano at the edges
Scale
One witnessing voice, a family glimpsed in three places, the body, violence, the dead and the sacred
Governing Proposition
A poet makes her first record a rite of possession: she enters a garage song of male desire and refuses its absolution, lets improvised verse pass under pressure from speech into chant, and sets two long pieces, an ascension and an assault that becomes a vision of horses, at the centre of two parallel sides; a self authored in the act, at white heat, by a band of modest means.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
The record begins with a refusal. Over a slow piano a voice speaks of a redemption paid for other people’s sins and closes the line “but not mine”. Then the band comes in on a song Van Morrison wrote for Them, a garage song of male desire, and the singer takes the man’s part: she is the one who watches the girl, and the girl’s name is spelled out as a shouted chant. The absolution is refused before it is offered, and the song is entered and overwritten from inside. Every later track follows from that seizure.
Arista released the album in November 1975: eight tracks on two sides, about forty-three minutes. John Cale produced it, and it was recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York that year. The band was Patti Smith on voice, Lenny Kaye on guitar, Ivan Kral on bass and guitar, Richard Sohl on piano and Jay Dee Daugherty on drums. Robert Mapplethorpe took the cover photograph. Gloria carries the Them song inside Smith’s own text, and Land carries Chris Kenner’s Land of a Thousand Dances the same way; the other six are originals, co-written with members of the band or guests.
The sides are built in parallel: a song that opens, a shorter song, a long improvised piece in third place, and a short close. Side one ends at speed, side two in stillness. The two long pieces, Birdland and Land, take more than two-fifths of the record, and they are its reason for being. A poet who had read her work in St Mark’s Church made a first album for a new major label on which spoken and improvised verse is the centre rather than an interlude, set over three-chord rock, and a woman takes the place of rock’s possessed male singer without softening it. The stake was the whole career. The path had been cleared in part, by the Beats, the Doors, Dylan and the Velvet Underground, and the Velvet Underground’s own John Cale was in the room.
Movement II
Birdland is nine minutes on narration. After Peter Reich’s book of his father, it tells of a farmer’s boy after his father’s funeral, alone in a field, waiting for the ship that will take him up. Sohl’s piano gives it a frame, and the voice holds the length on timing alone, murmuring, circling, drifting in the middle before it rises. In its last minutes it climbs from narration to a cry, the son lifted toward the light. It is the record’s purest height, and it is reached by building rather than by volume.
The myth is built, not borrowed. The ascension of the son to the father is old, a figure of Phaethon or Elijah, but it stays particular: a boy in a field, a ship he wants to see, a grief that takes the form of a wish to be carried off into the dead man’s vessel. What Birdland discloses is grief as a child knows it, and the form discloses it: the words seem to arrive under pressure, as if found in the act of speaking, and a fixed setting would lose the sense of a self being made as it goes.
That is the disclosure of the whole record. The rite of rock, possession by a beat and a word, can be taken by someone it was not made for, a woman reading the French poets, and used to author a self free of inherited sin and inherited roles. But the record does what it would disclose more than it states it. The condition is shown at white heat rather than understood, the meanings are often ecstatic and obscure, and two of the eight tracks add little to them. The act is credited where acts are counted, under the swerve and the pressure on the tradition; as statement, the disclosure stops short of the summit bar.
Movement III
Redondo Beach follows Gloria with a light reggae lilt, and under the lilt is the story of a girl drowned after a quarrel. It is the record’s furthest element from Land, nine minutes of assault and frenzy, and the two obey one law: desire and death meet at the edge of the water, and the voice testifies to what it saw. The same law holds Kimberly’s storm, Birdland’s ascension and Elegie’s lament. The poet is witness and seer, passing through the body to vision, across a range that runs from reggae and lounge piano to garage rock and incantation, though the band’s narrow palette does part of the binding.
The shorter songs carry the record’s slack. Kimberly opens side two with a storm, a newborn sister and a burning barn, and it lifts. Free Money closes side one at speed, a dream of money for a mother, strong but saying in four minutes what Gloria and Land say better. Break It Up, a dream of a dead singer, is the most conventional song on the record and spends its idea early; it borrows the record’s law rather than enacting it. Of the eight, these are the ones a hostile listener would cut, and with Birdland’s drifting middle they come to about a tenth of the record that is permitted rather than required.
In form they are containers, not instruments. And here the making is at its thinnest: the band plays with limited technique and in places roughly, Kaye’s guitar is serviceable rather than shaped, Break It Up and Free Money are generically arranged, and the sound of the record is thin beside the best-made records of its year. Rawness is credited where it is chosen and load-bearing, in the long pieces. Not all of the band’s limits are chosen. The Made stands at 8.0, below Marquee Moon at 8.6, from the same New York scene, and that gap is the plainest thing that separates the two.
Movement IV
Land is in three parts by its title, Horses, Land of a Thousand Dances and La Mer(de), and it is the summit of the record by force. A boy called Johnny is in a hallway; he is assaulted, and he passes into a vision of horses. The dance-craze litany of Kenner’s song becomes the liturgy of that passage, its list of steps chanted until it breaks, voices stacked over voices, and the piece goes out into the sea. The sacrificial youth and the horse as the force that carries off bear the structure. This is myth built, and with Birdland it is the record’s claim to depth.
The making is at its most load-bearing here. Smith’s improvisations are multitracked so that two or three voices speak at once, each pursuing its own line, and the passage from speech to chant to song is carried by the layering. Height comes on five of the eight tracks and on both long pieces, but here as elsewhere it is mostly of one colour, ecstasy, and Land reaches its summit by mass as much as by building. Return still repays it: the stacked voices yield new strands, and the improvised text reorganises on each hearing.
The pressure on the tradition is of stance and voice. The record joined poetry to garage rock on equal terms, made a woman the possessed centre of the rite, and was one of the first albums from the circle around CBGB, ahead of the debuts of the Ramones and Television. Michael Stipe, Morrissey, PJ Harvey and Kim Gordon are among those who have named it formative, and the poet-singer of punk and post-punk descends from it more than from any other single record. What it did not change was the sound: punk’s musical language was made by others. The Velvet Underground & Nico, its nearest ancestor, stands above it at 8.8.
Movement V
The record ends in mourning rather than triumph. Elegie is a few minutes of lament after the frenzy of Land, grave and low, Sohl’s piano under the voice, and it closes a sequence that began in Gloria’s laughter and its refused absolution. From a refusal of redemption to a lament for the dead: the two sides run in parallel, and the second ends where the first could not, in stillness. It is the cold kind of height, and it is compelled where it stands.
Fifty-one years have tested the record. It survives whole as issued, in print, reissued and remastered, and its fabric dates less than most records of 1975, because Cale’s plain production and a garage band ask for no period technology. Its presence is narrower than its fame: it sold modestly, Gloria and Land are known, and it is heard whole chiefly by musicians, critics and devoted listeners. It has been written about continuously, and Smith’s Just Kids (2010) renewed attention to its making. The depth is concentrated: the long pieces keep yielding, and the short songs were exhausted early.
What the record holds is one consciousness making itself in speech, a family glimpsed in three places, the body and its violence, death three times over, a sacred refused and a light hoped for, and the dead of art as a lineage. Labour, the state and history do not arrive, and the orders are joined by one witnessing voice more than by a structure. The cover is part of the argument: Mapplethorpe’s photograph of the singer in a plain shirt, a jacket over her shoulder, plain and androgynous. It is a portrait of the self the record sets out to author, and it is the first thing the record shows.
Act III · The Twelve
Eight tracks in about forty-three minutes, and the frame is compelled. Gloria has to open: the record begins by refusing a doctrine and then seizes a garage song of male desire, and every later track follows from that seizure. Land has to stand where it does, the climax of side two, and Elegie has to close, a hush after the frenzy. Birdland and Land, improvised at length, are the record’s reason for being. The subtractive test bites twice. Break It Up is the most conventional song here, its dream of a dead singer spent early, and Free Money says in four minutes what Gloria and Land say better. Birdland drifts in its middle before it rises. About a tenth of the record is permitted rather than required.
Score: 8.2 / 10
The disclosure can be stated: the rite of rock, possession by a beat and a word, can be taken by someone it was not made for, a woman reading the French poets, and used to author a self free of inherited sin and inherited roles. Gloria discloses it in form: the singer becomes the one who watches the girl, and absolution is refused before it is offered. Land discloses violence and transcendence together; Birdland discloses grief as a child’s wish to be taken up into his dead father’s ship. The voice breaking from speech into chant carries much of this, and is credited fully. Held below the bar: the condition is shown at white heat more than understood, and two of the eight tracks add little to it.
Score: 8.2 / 10
Elevation is frequent and of the frenzied kind, the transport of possession. Gloria builds from a slow piano and a spoken refusal to a shouted, spelled-out chorus, a real arrival. Birdland rises in its last minutes from murmured narration to a cry, the son lifted toward the light: the record’s purest height. Land is the summit by force, the dance litany breaking into the horses, voices stacked over voices, then the sea. Kimberly lifts on a storm and a newborn sister, and Elegie is the cold kind, grave and low. Free Money is drive rather than height, and two songs stay level. What holds the figure is that the height is often of one colour, ecstasy, and sometimes reached by volume more than by building.
Score: 8.6 / 10
Myth is built in two pieces and evoked across the rest. Land builds a rite of passage and possession: Johnny, a boy in a hallway, is violated and passes through a vision of horses into the sea. The sacrificial youth and the horse as the force that carries off bear load, and the dance litany is their liturgy. Birdland builds the son’s ascension to the father, a farmer’s boy waiting for the ship, a figure of Phaethon or Elijah that stays particular: a boy in a field after a funeral. Gloria inverts annunciation and confession; Elegie is a lament for the dead. Held below the bar: across the eight the evoked outweighs the built, and the poet-seer behind the whole is invoked more than constructed.
Score: 8.3 / 10
The inheritance is the garage song and the long rock incantation, the Doors’ The End and the Velvet Underground’s long pieces, beside the Beat practice of poetry with music and the French symbolists. The turn is real: a poet who had read in St Mark’s Church makes a debut for a new major label on which spoken and improvised verse is the centre, not an interlude, set over three-chord rock, and a woman takes the place of rock’s possessed male singer without softening it. The plain, androgynous cover is part of the turn. The stake was the whole career: a first album, a band of modest technique, a form with no proven market. What holds the figure at the bar is the path: the Beats, the Doors, Dylan and the Velvet Underground had cleared much of the ground, and the Velvet Underground’s John Cale produced it.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Change the form and the record knows less. Its knowledge is possession, and its form is the improvised piece that passes from speech into chant into song as the speaker is taken over: Birdland and Land are built so that the words seem to arrive under pressure, and a fixed, rhymed setting would lose the sense of a self made in the act. Gloria’s form is its argument, a cover entered and overwritten, a male song taken from inside. The sequence is counted here, once: two sides in parallel, each with its long piece third, moving from a refusal of redemption to a lament, from laughter to quiet. What holds it: Redondo Beach, Free Money and Break It Up are containers rather than instruments, and the sides run parallel more than they develop.
Score: 8.4 / 10
Fifty-one years supply evidence. The record has been written about continuously as a founding document of the New York scene and of women in rock, and Smith’s memoir Just Kids (2010) renewed attention to its making. Return repays in the long pieces: the improvised texts of Land and Birdland reorganise on each hearing, the stacked voices of Land yield new strands, and the passage from speech to song keeps its tension. The semantic yield is uneven. Redondo Beach, Free Money and Break It Up are exhausted early, and some of what listeners find in the long pieces is projection invited by their obscurity. The depth is concentrated in a third of the record, and that holds the figure where it stands.
Score: 8.3 / 10
The field is the rock of the mid-1970s, and the contest is with the craft of arena and progressive rock and with the male singer’s persona. The intrinsic force is high: the record joined poetry to garage rock on equal terms, made a woman the possessed centre of the rite, and was one of the first albums from the circle around CBGB, ahead of the debuts of the Ramones and Television. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: Michael Stipe, Morrissey, PJ Harvey and Kim Gordon are among the musicians who have named it formative, and the poet-singer of punk and post-punk descends from it more than from any other single record. The musical language did not move; punk’s sound was made elsewhere. It stands above Remain in Light at 8.5 and below Low at 9.1.
Score: 8.7 / 10
Survival is weighed over fifty-one years, on form, then presence, then fabric. The form is whole: the recording survives as issued, in print, reissued and remastered. Presence is continuous but narrower than the record’s fame. It sold modestly on release; Gloria and Land are known, and the album is heard whole chiefly by musicians, critics and devoted listeners, so that its place on every list is reputation more than presence. The fabric dates less than most records of its year, because Cale’s plain production and a garage band ask for no period technology. Nothing draws it toward the widest presence, and nothing charges it below the usual figure for its span. It stands level with Low and Remain in Light at 8.7.
Score: 8.7 / 10
Command of the recorded medium, with the words weighed elsewhere. Smith’s voice is the instrument, and its command is real: phrasing that moves from speech to chant without a seam, timing that holds Birdland’s nine minutes on narration, and the multitracked improvisations of Land, two or three voices speaking at once, the making at its most load-bearing. Cale’s production is plain and serves the voice, and Richard Sohl’s piano frames Birdland and Elegie. Against that, the band plays with limited technique and in places roughly, Lenny Kaye’s guitar is serviceable rather than shaped, Break It Up and Free Money are generically arranged, and the sound is thin beside the best-made records of its year. Load-bearing in two pieces, adequate in the rest: it stands below Marquee Moon at 8.6.
Score: 8.0 / 10
Take the two most distant elements: Redondo Beach, a light reggae lilt over the story of a girl drowned after a quarrel, and Land, nine minutes of assault, vision and frenzy. They obey one law: in each, desire and death meet at the edge of the water, and the voice testifies to what it saw. The same law holds Gloria’s refusal, Kimberly’s storm, Birdland’s ascension and Elegie’s lament: the poet as witness and seer, passing through the body to vision. The range is fairly wide, from reggae and lounge piano to garage rock and incantation, but the band’s narrow palette does part of the binding. Break It Up borrows the law rather than enacting it, and Free Money’s dream of money for a mother sits at the edge of the frame.
Score: 8.3 / 10
Judged on what the record holds, with no discount for the album form. Consciousness is held fully, the self making itself in the act of speech. The family enters in three places: a sister born in a storm in Kimberly, a mother and a dream of money in Free Money, a dead father and his son in Birdland. The body and sexuality are held in Gloria and Land, violence in Land, death in Redondo Beach, Birdland and Elegie, the sacred in Gloria’s refused redemption and Birdland’s light, and art and its dead as a lineage. What holds it lowest: labour, the state, history and the natural order beyond weather and sea are absent or glimpsed, and the orders are joined by one witnessing voice more than by a structure.
Score: 7.4 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
8.3 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier IV · Canonical
Strongest Dimensions
Pressure on Tradition and The Imperishable at 8.7, then The Sublime at 8.6 and The Swerve at 8.5. A record that joined poetry to garage rock on equal terms and put a woman at the possessed centre of the rite, a whole survival of fifty-one years behind a fabric that asks for no period technology, frenzied height on five of eight tracks, and a debut staked on spoken and improvised verse at its centre.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 7.4: one witnessing voice, a family glimpsed, the body, violence, death and the sacred held, and labour, the state and history absent. Below the rest, The Made at 8.0, a voice of real command over a band of limited technique and a thin sound, and The Inevitable and The Unconcealment at 8.2: about a tenth of the record permitted, and a self-authorship shown at white heat more than articulated.
The Necessity Cap clears at 8.2 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears: The Living Form at 8.4, The Made at 8.0, The Inner Law at 8.3, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet: Pressure on Tradition at 8.7 and The Imperishable at 8.7 clear the bar of 8.5, and The Swerve meets it exactly at 8.5, but The Unconcealment at 8.2 and The Archetypal Deep at 8.3 fall short. The Universal Minimum is met: no axis but The Encompassed falls below 8.0, against 7.5, and The Encompassed, which is exempted, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 7.4. The summit is withheld by the Epochal Gate, and by the aggregate, which stands below 9.0.
Basis · the album as first released by Arista in November 1975, eight tracks in their original sequence on two sides, about forty-three minutes, produced by John Cale; judged from knowledge of the recording, its words in their principal lines and images, its making in outline and its reception. No recording or lyric sheet was in hand, and running times are approximate. The 1996 reissue, which adds a live “My Generation”, and the 2005 Legacy edition, which adds a second disc of a 2005 concert performance of the whole album, are not the object. Songs are cited by title, and one phrase of three words is quoted. Facts that could not be verified, among them the months of the sessions, the guest players and their tracks, the exact running times, the chart position, whom Elegie mourns, which poets are named in Land, Smith’s later performances of the whole album and any national registry listing, are not given.