Patti Smith Group-Easter (1978)

 

Artist: Patti Smith Group

Title: Easter

Label: Arista

Format: CD

Cat # ARCD 8166

Year of Release: 1978

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1996

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+

Sell Date: 3/21/22

Sell Price: $2.99

Discogs Last Sold: 2/11/22 $1.99

Low: $1.12

Median: $2.98

Average: $3.03

High: $6.00

Current low price: $2.00

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 17

Have/Want: 150/58

Where Sold: Lancaster, OH

Time it took to sell: 11 years

Where and When Bought: Sounds used late 90's

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A

Sad To See It Go: No

"Outside of society..."

Today, March 24th is my late mother's birthday.  She would've been 74 today and she liked this album Easter when the whole family took it out of the library back in 1978.  She had long black hair then and sort've looked like Patti Smith.  I remember distinctly when she first laid eyes on the cover she commented on Patti's unshaven armpits.  I actually took my mom to see Patti when she opened for Dylan in Worcester in the mid 90's, and she enjoyed Patt kicking off her shoes before "Dancing Barefoot" so Happy Birthday Ma!  

This was the first Patti Smith album I ever heard.  My father wanted to take it out of the library not because of some sort of Punk narrative, but because he read about it in Stereo Review and she covered Bruce Springsteen, whose Darkness On The Edge Of Town was an actual household purchase, given to him by me as a birthday gift that year and played incessantly.  The Boss's "Because The Night" of course was a massive mainstream hit for Patti, So big the single peaked high than the album at #13 in an 18 week Billboard Hot 100 chart run vs #20 in a 23 week run in the top 200.  

"Rock 'n' Roll Nigger" of course was the real centerpiece.  Unutterable expletive uttered many times in artisan revolt, not in some sort of racist screed, but in self-aggrandizing defiance.    Let's take a look at the "Babelogue" poem that segues into it if you don't believe me:

"I haven't fucked much with the past, but i've fucked plenty with the future over the skin of silk are scars from the splinters of stations and wall i've caressed. a stage is like each bolt of wood, like a log of helen, pleasure. i would measure the success of a night by the way by the way by the amount of piss and seed i could exude over the columns that nestled the PA some nights i'd surprise everybody by skipping off with a skirt of green net sewed over with flat metallic circles which dazzled and flashed. the lights were violet and white i had an ornamental veil, but i couldn't bear to use it. when my hair was cropped i carved covering, but now my hair itself is a veil, and the scalp of a crazy and sleepy comanche lies beneath this netting of skin. i wake up. i am lying peacefully. i am lying peacefully and my knees are open to the sun. i desire him, and he is absolutely ready to seize me. in heart i am moslem in heart i am an american. in heart i am moslem. in heart i am an american artist and i have no guilt. i seek pleasure. i seek the nerves under your skin. the narrow archway, the layers; the scroll of ancient lettuce. we worship the flaw, the belly, the belly, the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore. he spared the child and spoiled the rod. i have not sold myself to god."

Now that we are in a post-intellectual phase of a authoritarian-technocracy, such an outburst is now deemed heresy even by the supposed peers the lyric is aimed at.  We live in a world where violence is felt justified by thoughts and ideas.  If "the people" HAVE the power, other people will TAKE the power over you and over everything if you allow it.  Tough to root out oppression full time if you want to keep a roof over your head for most of “the people.”

But enough nihilist ranting!  Let's enjoy Black Sheep Whore Patti for what she is and her place in society outside of or in reality in.  Take a big swig of Seagrams 7 for my Ma and mother's everywhere lost to the sands of time. You know if you have one.

Big and gonna get bigger.