Damn. Had to scrap the '79 performance and go with 2007 because the embed kept returning "this video is not available," though it plays fine at YouTube.
Last edited by Gouda on Sat Mar 20, 2010 1:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Oh, man. "Personality Crisis" is an absolutely perfect song from first note to last, and will never grow old, imo. ("We Will Fall" by the Stooges, which you posted not too long ago is such another, in the jukebox of my heart, anyway, so thanks for that one too) but the pivot-pont @ roughly 2:10 to 2:19 is even more perfect than perfect. ("You're a prima ballerina on a spring afternoon (wolf-whistling)/Change on into the wolfman howling at the moon (Ow-oooo)"
That's just like transcendence in a bottle every time I hear it. And all the more so, since it's acquired various fond personal associations for me over the years. As have a few members of that band, may the lord rest the souls of all but the two who still draw breath. And also the soul of Cyrinda Foxe, whom I think it's actually about, although I never knew her.
Anyway: Always the purest, purest pleasure. Thanks, Uncle $cam.
Try to ignore the thirty-second silent intro, which kinda misses the point.***
Because although I've never been crazy about this song, the "Babelogue" intro and other spoken-word touches in this version totally redeems it. Plus, I've always loved Lenny's verse, even in the original release. As who would not, the man is nothing but lovable. He was put on earth to act as a messenger of love, as far as I'm concerned.
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*** And also makes me wonder, not for the first time, what it would fucking take for Patti Smith to make it clear to the world that she's not a feminist artist, not particularly interested in speaking from a female perspective about anything, and quite frankly doesn't give much of a fuck about women as a class.
Since she's been saying as much, repeatedly, for at least thirty years. And also living every stage of her life in a way that thoroughly demonstrated that her professed lack of interest in the issue was as true personally as it was politically. I mean, what part of her totally being on the side of Joe for shooting his woman down in the below could possibly be not clear to anyone?
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To say nothing of the part implicit in starting your first single with the words:
"Honey, the way you play guitar makes me feel so, makes me feel so masochistic. The way you go down low deep into the neck and I would do anything, and I would do anything and Patty Hearst, you're standing there in front of the Symbionese Liberation Army flag with your legs spread, I was wondering will you get it every night from a black revolutionary man (et&)."
Especially when you happen to be a woman in the middle of the Ms. Magazine '70s. My point being: Wimminism is simply not what she's about. It's not an ambiguous issue. And obviously, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Yet there are still "Woman Is the Nigger of the World" references in the YouTube slideshows people put together for her songs to this very day. It's utterly baffling.
Honestly, it's a happy thing that she's kind of a jerk, I guess. Because if she'd been the more sensitive Tim-Buckley-type of poetic singer-songwriter, she might have taken that sort of thing a little too much to heart long ago.
by Allegro » Sat Mar 20, 2010 12:36 am 
