Patti Smith - Land: Horses, Land of A Thousand Dances, La Mer (De)
This song, from Patti's most famous album; Horses, is a classic example of her music. Spoken-word poetry style lyrics underpinned by 3 chord rock embellished with complex & subtle instrumentals. Perfect.
The album was a huge influence on the New York punk scene (Not every punk band sounds like The Sex Pistols.)
While most punk expounded a pragmatic ethos, with simple instrumentals, short songs, simple lyrics, deriving power through repetition like a protest, Patti used complex arrangements and varied instrumental accompaniments and ambiguous lyrics.
Anyway, all that music history and theory bullshit aside, this song rocks!
I made the video from The Tracey Fragments, a film made by Bruce McDonald, (starring Ellen Page) a slightly avant-garde Canadian director, who made all the material for the film available to download and welcomed fans of his to edit the film into whatever they wanted.
P.s Ellen is apparently a huge fan of Patti!