Patti Smith’s “Horses”: When Poetry Slams Into Rock and Both Lose the Fight

Look, I get it. It’s 1975, and you’re at some Greenwich Village café where everyone’s wearing black turtlenecks and debating whether a urinal in a museum is the pinnacle of artistic achievement. Someone puts on Patti Smith’s “Horses,” and suddenly everyone’s nodding meaningfully while sipping overpriced espresso. But let’s cut through the intellectual smokescreen here.

“Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine” – the album’s opening line – lands with all the subtlety of a freshman philosophy major who just discovered Nietzsche. What follows is 43 minutes of Smith alternating between speaking-singing poetry with the conviction of someone reading their diary at gunpoint and unleashing banshee wails that make Bob Dylan sound like Frank Sinatra.

Now, before the pitchfork-wielding art rock devotees show up at my door, let me acknowledge what “Horses” gets right. The backing band is tight when they’re allowed to be, particularly on “Gloria,” where they build a genuinely hypnotic groove before Smith decides to turn it into a stream-of-consciousness fever dream about… well, who really knows? The production by John Cale (yes, THAT John Cale) is crisp and spacious, proving that at least someone in the studio understood the concept of restraint.

“Land” is arguably brilliant – if you can wade through its nine minutes of beat poetry about horses, Johnny, and the sea of possibilities. It’s like “The Waste Land” crashed into “Louie Louie,” and somehow they both survived. The raw energy is undeniable, even when it feels like Smith is just throwing words at the wall to see what sticks.

But then we get to tracks like “Birdland,” where Smith’s free-form poetry about a boy watching his father’s funeral morphs into an improvised alien abduction narrative. It’s either genius or the result of someone leaving their coffee cup unattended at a beatnik café – I’m still not sure which. The music meanders behind her like a lost tourist in Manhattan, occasionally stumbling into moments of accidental brilliance.

“Break It Up” showcases what this album could have been if Smith had remembered that songs traditionally have things like “structure” and “choruses.” It’s almost – dare I say it – catchy, before dissolving into another bout of artistic self-indulgence.

Let’s talk about “Kimberly.” The genuine tenderness Smith shows for her sister is touching, even if it’s expressed through imagery about nuclear fallout and apocalyptic weather. It’s like getting a heartfelt birthday card that’s somehow also about the end of the world.

The musicianship deserves praise – these guys could really play when given the chance. Richard Sohl’s piano work adds genuine texture and depth, while Lenny Kaye’s guitar manages to both support and survive Smith’s vocal adventures. They’re like expert tightrope walkers maintaining their balance while someone’s vigorously shaking the rope.

“Horses” is undoubtedly influential, paving the way for punk, art rock, and countless coffee shop poets who mistake volume for profundity. It’s like a Rorschach test set to music – what you get out of it probably says more about you than the actual album. Is it groundbreaking? Absolutely. Is it enjoyable? Well, that depends on your tolerance for artistic revolution and your capacity for finding profound meaning in phrases like “the boy was in the hallway drinking a glass of tea.”

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Pretentious Coffee Cups ☕

High Points:

• When the band gets to actually play music
• John Cale’s production
• Moments of genuine emotional breakthrough
• Historical importance to punk rock

Low Points:

• Poetry that makes Allen Ginsberg sound like Dr. Seuss
• Structural coherence apparently banned from studio
• More pretension than a modern art gallery’s coat check

Final Thought: “Horses” is like that person at a party who won’t stop talking about their semester abroad in Paris – occasionally interesting, undeniably cultured, but my God, would you please just get to the point?