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Philip Shaw

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Patti Smith's Horses (33 1/3) Paperback – April 15, 2008

by Philip Shaw (Author)

4.3 28 ratings

Part of: 33 1/3 (174 books)

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Described as the perfect fusion of poetry and garage band rock and roll (the original concept was "rock and Rimbaud"), Horses belongs as much to the world of literary and cultural criticism as it does to the realm of musicology. While Horses pays homage to the record's origins in the nascent New York punk scene, the book's core lies in a detailed analysis of Patti Smith's lyrics and includes discussions of lyrical preoccupations: love, sex, gender, death, dreams, god, metamorphosis, intoxication, apocalypse and transcendence. Philip shaw demonstrates how Horses transformed the possibilities of both poetry and rock music; and how it achieved nothing less than a complete and systematic derangement of the senses.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Armed with an amazing depth of knowledge and insight on Smith's life from childhood to the release of her debut masterpiece, Shaw contributes yet another stellar entry in this excellent series of books." -Popmatters--Sanford Lakoff

About the Author

Philip Shaw is a Reader in the Department of English at the University of Leicester. His previous publications include Waterloo and the Romantic Imagination (2002) and The Sublime (2006). He writes songs and plays guitar in the group Alberteen: www.myspace.com/alberteenmusic

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Continuum; First Edition (April 15, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 176 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0826427928
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0826427922
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.99 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.75 x 0.4 x 6.4 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #859,070 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #359 in Punk Music (Books)
- #2,437 in Music History & Criticism (Books)
- #2,684 in Rock Band Biographies

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4.3 28 ratings

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fixilator
Great series
Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2013
Verified Purchase
the 33 1/3 series is great for album-oriented music-obsessives (is there any other kind? I guess so, these days)!

This is a good one to start with. Love reading about the early-70s NYC scene.

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dennisqdw
I thought that this one was excellent
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2012
As some readers will know the 33 1/3 books vary wildly in quality and relevance. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and considering that this record is one that I have listened to death I thought the author did a great job of setting the stage (Smith's background), and analyzing the songs. After reading I listened to the LP one more time with even greater appreciation. If you're put off by an academic approach than maybe this book isn't for you, but otherwise have at it.

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Patrick Mc Coy
Seminal Album
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2009
Verified Purchase
I recently read Philip Shaw's 33 1/3 book length essay on Patti Smith's seminal album Horses. Shaw is a Reader in the English Department at the University of Leicester; therefore his analysis is rife with theorists like Lacan, Benjamin, Freud, Jung, and others. But I think the real strength of his book lies in the biographical sketches he provides about her early life and development as an artist. Shaw does an admirable job with explaining how Smith got tot eh point where she could record an album like Horses and provided insight into the background and lyrics of the songs. For example I was unaware that "Redondo Beach" was code for a gay beach in the LA area. It was interesting to hear her past with people like Sam Shepard and the whole downtown scene. I find many of Smith's songs timeless-and the ones from this album include "Land," "Gloria," and "Redondo Beach."

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Midnight To Six
Not much insight....
Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2016
Horses is one of the 100 or so albums that actually deserves a book written about it. Everything about it, from the innovative blend of poetry and garage rock, to the iconic cover art, has become interwoven into the fabric of rock and influenced countless bands. What Phillip Shaw’s 150-page mini-book on Horses accomplishes is that it dissects the influences, both musically and lyrically, which helped Patti Smith and her band shape the songs on Horses. Shaw dives deep to show how Smith drew on events from her life or other people’s songs and use them as a springboard for her own creations (like on “Kimberly” and “Gloria”). Where the book falters is that it lacks insider perspective, with none of the people involved in making the record contributing first-hand insights (there are some quotes reprinted from other sources). Without that crucial piece of info, this stands strictly as a fan essay, which is intriguing for other fans, but can hardly be called the final word on the album. There isn’t much here that couldn’t have been learned from the multiple Patti Smith biographies in print, Please Kill Me, From Velvets To Voidoids or the liner notes from the expanded edition of Horses.

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S. Gustafson
Probably not the best way to approach a rock and roll record
Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2010
Patti Smith's masterpiece *Horses* is probably more deserving than most rock and roll records of serious academic study, especially given that Smith steeped herself in both high culture and rock history before making it. The best parts of the book are its artistic biography of Smith prior to its release.

On the other hand, the book relies heavily on the "theory" of Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, and other late twentieth century noncemongers, whose melange of Marx and Freud persuaded the academic Left to waste its days in unintelligible, irrelevant indolence for a time. This hurts.

Shaw, for example, makes note of the androgyny of Mapplethorpe's dramatic cover photograph. He's not the first to notice. He relates it quite properly to the dandyism cultivated by French symbolist poets such as Rimbaud and Baudelaire, artists that rank high in Smith's constellation of high culture influences. He goes on to describe the photograph as a statement that the "phallus is no more privileged than any other signifier", which does not appear to be meaningful, much less insightful. I'm not sure it contributes to understanding, even if kicking the privileged phallus is always fun. And he misses entirely the opportunity to compare Mapplethorpe's stark androgyny with the somewhat more baroque androgyny of male artists like David Bowie or Marc Bolan, which would appear to be immediately relevant in the context of Smith's Max's Kansas City days.

The high themes of sexuality and mortality run through the record. A Freudian take on the record is certainly a valid approach given these themes. Shaw's text is quite helpful when it doesn't go adrift in the lotus land of deconstruction. When it does, you can skip ahead a bit without missing anything.

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Eringobiteme
Mansplaining for punks
Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2017
I only read the except from Salon, but it was factually wrong (Jay Daugherty was in high school in the late 60s, not palling around with John Cale) and fatuous as only an English academic psychoanyzing a woman he has never met can be. Skip it.

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Dorian Gray
worth its weight in gold
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 30, 2018
Verified Purchase
Patti Smith's first album Horses was decadent + dangerous

part witch part exorcist , Patti adopts a multiplicity of roles : decadent poet , male rocker , pirate girl but always the alchemist , a female changeling , weaving magic + casting spells. this book - worth its weight in gold - intelligently explores Patti's strange alchemy , revealing/exposing many of Her Dark Materials

the formative influences include Blake + Rimbauld + the beatnick writers + the bad boys of rock - Dylan , everyone in The Stones ( but mostly Keith Richards ) + the dead rock legends - Brian Jones , Jim Morrison + Jimi Hendrix + the bad girl Janis Joplin . we get the sense that Horses was a kind of witch's brew that had been cooking/stewing in the mind of Patti Smith until by 1975 it was ready + fully potent

many of the essential elements/ingredients were to be found as far back as Feb 1971 when Patti gave a poetry reading in St Mark's Church , New York. Her appearance caused the audience to gasp with astonishment " At odds with the then conventionally immaculate image of female glamour , Smith is tall, dishevelled + skiny , her look a mishmash of thrift store threads + garage punk chic. A sexually ambivalent figure she seems nervous ... but once her fumbling introduction is over she snaps quickly into character ".

what follows is electric...Mack The Knife , The Ballad Of A Bad Boy she dedicates to her then lover Sam Shephard who was in the audience that night + Picture Hanging Blues - homage to the outlaw Jesse James all " delivered in a characteristic New Jersey burr , the reading is confident + assured ...Smith displays an impressive command of language , juxtaposing artistic formulation with street talk , slang phrases + judicious expletives "

but this outlaw with a rock n roll heart initially refused to front a rock band until she was almost 30. by the end my beautiful friend you understand why Horses was so iconoclastic + ahead of its time...Patti had managed to fuse male + female , hetero + homo , poet + rock star , artist + product ….which had never been done before !

Read more

Dorian Gray

worth its weight in gold
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 30, 2018
Patti Smith's first album Horses was decadent + dangerous

part witch part exorcist , Patti adopts a multiplicity of roles : decadent poet , male rocker , pirate girl but always the alchemist , a female changeling , weaving magic + casting spells. this book - worth its weight in gold - intelligently explores Patti's strange alchemy , revealing/exposing many of Her Dark Materials

the formative influences include Blake + Rimbauld + the beatnick writers + the bad boys of rock - Dylan , everyone in The Stones ( but mostly Keith Richards ) + the dead rock legends - Brian Jones , Jim Morrison + Jimi Hendrix + the bad girl Janis Joplin . we get the sense that Horses was a kind of witch's brew that had been cooking/stewing in the mind of Patti Smith until by 1975 it was ready + fully potent

many of the essential elements/ingredients were to be found as far back as Feb 1971 when Patti gave a poetry reading in St Mark's Church , New York. Her appearance caused the audience to gasp with astonishment " At odds with the then conventionally immaculate image of female glamour , Smith is tall, dishevelled + skiny , her look a mishmash of thrift store threads + garage punk chic. A sexually ambivalent figure she seems nervous ... but once her fumbling introduction is over she snaps quickly into character ".

what follows is electric...Mack The Knife , The Ballad Of A Bad Boy she dedicates to her then lover Sam Shephard who was in the audience that night + Picture Hanging Blues - homage to the outlaw Jesse James all " delivered in a characteristic New Jersey burr , the reading is confident + assured ...Smith displays an impressive command of language , juxtaposing artistic formulation with street talk , slang phrases + judicious expletives "

but this outlaw with a rock n roll heart initially refused to front a rock band until she was almost 30. by the end my beautiful friend you understand why Horses was so iconoclastic + ahead of its time...Patti had managed to fuse male + female , hetero + homo , poet + rock star , artist + product ….which had never been done before !

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