Easter

About

A few months after the release of its 1976 album <i>Radio Ethiopia</i>, the Patti Smith Group was on tour with Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band. As the opener, the PSG was confined to a small space at the front of the stage, at a venue much larger than the ones in which the group normally played. Together, those factors proved to be disorienting for Smith, and when she began to spin around during “Ain’t It Strange,” she lost her balance and fell off the stage to the concrete floor below. Luckily, the fall didn’t kill her—but the injury ended the tour, and vanquished any hopes at promoting the album. So when the time arrived to make Smith’s third album, she headed into the studio seeking more than just a hit—she was looking for redemption. She wanted her songs to sound good on the radio, and had made the acquaintance of a recording engineer she frequently spotted at the studio—a guy who was <i>always</i> there, no matter what time of day or night it wa. His name was Jimmy Iovine, and Smith thought this hardworking twentysomething kid would be the perfect producer for her next album. As it turned out, Iovine already had a full-time gig: He was working as the engineer for Bruce Springsteen, who’d been recording the album that would become <i>The River</i>. Springsteen had been writing a lot of song, not all of which were earmarked for the next album—and many of which weren’t even finished. Iovine had his eye on one of them, a song for which Springsteen had written the melody and choru, yet hadn’t composed any lyric. Iovine asked if he could bring the song to Smith, and while waiting one night for her boyfriend to call, she wrote some words for the unfinished track. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

Start your shelf to read the full take →