Patti Smith - rock-music singer - Interview

Progressive, The, Dec, 1997 by John Nichols

An artist's role in society is often decided by the people. The people decide how they want to use the work of a certain artist, or how the work of that artist affects them or their ideas.

Q: That said, Peace and Noise contains a great many statements of a political nature. And those statements are, in many ways, refinements of messages you have delivered throughout your career.

Smith: I intentionally do that. I'm not a pure artist. I would like to be, and I would like to think that occasionally I write a pure poem or a pure prose piece. But, in terms, of rock 'n' roll, I never set out to be a purist. Again, I'm not a real singer. I'm not a true musician. I had things to say, and I felt that it was my right to say those things in the format of rock 'n' roll. It took it as my right. I've always seen rock 'n' roll as a vehicle to share ideas or to incite people. I've really never considered--especially when I was younger--that my work itself was that important. What I thought was important was that I had certain amount of energy, and I seemed to affect people in a certain way, and so I wanted to use that power to get people who were more articulate than me, more motivated, to take the next step and do things.

I've always wanted to make people think. We've got plenty of entertainment happening in America. There's plenty of people writing the kind of songs or singing the kind of songs or developing the sort of image that will entertain America. That's not my real interest.

I like people to have a good time when I'm performing. I like to see people laugh. I love to make people laugh. But I'm not there to entertain people.

Q: Perhaps the most powerful song on Peace and Noise is "1959." It's about Tibet, which is a trendy cause now, but for you this is an expression of a very old concern, isn't it?

Smith: I got involved in the Tibetan situation as a young girl. In the late fifties, when I was a schoolgirl, we all had to pick a country to do a year report on. We had to take things out of the newspapers. I picked Tibet, which I had learned about in the library. I was vary taken with the Dalai Lama and his philosophies. My teacher said to me, "Patti Lee, this country you've taken is so obscure. You'll never be able to fill a scrapbook with newspaper articles about this country. No one's ever heard about it." And I said, "No." I insisted on keeping Tibet. And much to my shock, in March of 1959, the Chinese invaded and all of a sudden this country that I adored and was so obscure was suddenly all over the newspapers. It was heartbreaking. The Dalai Lama, they thought, was dead, and they didn't know what had happened to his family.

I was devastated by this. My father has fought in World War II. I was pretty much raised with the idea that the great wars were settled and the world was free. I just couldn't understand how this could happen in Tibet. And what I really couldn't understand was how no one seemed to mind. I've been baffled by the Tibet situation since 1959. I've thought about it a lot. I've written little pieces. But this was the first time I really addressed it in a song.