Dear fetuses, it's difficult to imagine how INCREDIBLE it was to be a budding girl musician in the era of female fronted male driven bands and have someone like Patti Smith making records (that's right, I said records). All the cool musicians were boys (Joni gets an exemption here because she is like an actual universe unto herself and even though her initial offerings were melodically sweet and 'folk', her story telling was just so honest it may as well have been a razor ) and if you didn't want to just be candy, well, you were on your own to try and figure a way out of it.
Patti Smith came out of nowhere and paved the way for a different kind of female artist; raw, androgynous, in your face and unapologetic. She was the one we were excited about. Her music mattered. She helped us kick down our own walls and see ourselves beyond our gender.
It is inspiring that she is still fanning the flames of another generation.
Interesting. I listened to both; all the advice. I missed her arrival; 1975 was just when I was unplugging, for the next 20 years. :-)
ReplyDeleteThere's one aspect of her advice I'd like to talk to her about - "just do what you are called to do" (paraphrasing). Oh, but I know many, many people- who never feel any call; and are not driven, either. I'm afraid they're the majority. What about- all those on the lower side of the bell curve; where do they find a solid life? No one makes movies about heroes- who are solidly mediocre, and excel at nothing. Someone ought to. They have their own hell; and mostly do not abandon it. (And no, you can't talk about this in public.)
So last night, since I'm in a motel, I was availing myself of the reading material for bedtime purposes, and I re-read Ecclesiastes, for the first time in probably 20 years.
ReplyDeleteI think everything Patti said in her advice; is also there; from some 2,500 years ago. I find that simultaneously dismaying, and encouraging. Really.