Rock 'n' roll song lyrics are a weird hybrid genre that run the gamut from elementary-level school doggerel to literary art. At the high end of the spectrum, witness Patti Smith, who in addition to being an acclaimed memoirist (Just Kids; M Train) and respected poet (Auguries of Innocence), is one of the foremost rock lyricists of the last 40 years. Her Collected Lyrics is a valuable addition to the imprecise art of matching profound word play to primitive rhythms.
From the beginning of her career, Smith has walked a tightrope between controversy ("Jesus died for somebody's sins/ but not mine") and reverence, the topical and the surreal ("Standing outside the courthouse in the rain/ seemed like a lost soul/ from a chapel of dreams"). She can punch like a street thug one minute and offer the tender embrace of an earth mother the next. This wonderful range helps lift her lyrics to authentic poetry; they don't lay inert on the page without the galvanizing force of her shambolic howl and the power punk chords of her band behind her. These lyrics protest war, celebrate the sensual, movingly remember the dead, and serve as Buddhist and (non-traditional) Christian devotionals ("Even Christ yearns to be/ to possess the skin/ and bones of man the blood of man").
Collected Lyrics is a physically beautiful book, too, packed with facsimiles of Smith's handwritten lyrics, concert posters and other eye-catching treats. This is a worthwhile addition for rabid Patti Smith fans or for any student of literate rock. --Donald Powell, freelance writer