patti
smith on trampin'
page twelve
album
design
What appealed to you about using
a photograph of your feet for the cover of "Trampin' "?
PATTI SMITH:
i like the feet picture. i think its a strong, pure image, with no frills. i chose
it for obvious reasons, but it also resonates dancing barefoot. i often perform
barefoot, and being barefoot is an ageless image. It's a symbol of freedom.
Actually,
the disembodied image of a foot is, in a way, a bit surrealistic. In fact, I've
no doubt it's an image that would have pleased the great surrealist filmmaker
Luis Bunuel, who had a bit of a foot fetish. But the cover of "Cross Sections,"
your book of Polaroid photographs, features a shot of your work boots, which also
ties in with the theme of "Trampin'." Did you ever think about using
that image for the album cover?
PATTI SMITH: i thought
about putting my work boots on the cover, especially as we'd been in so many peace
marches and covered a lot of ground, but the boots shot has already been reproduced
quite a bit and an alternate (boots) shot was used in the venice biannale. ' |
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As
I recall, Arista pressured you to change the cover shot of "Easter"
and I believe it was reported in the Village Voice that your were pressured to
change the album's title from "Rock and Roll Nigger," to "Easter."
PATTI SMITH: the village voice is often wrong. easter
was never to be called anything but easter. i was asked to airbrush my armpit
hair from the cover which i refused to do. i was asked to drop the title rock
n roll nigger which i refused to do. thus the album was pulled from many stores,
but i am not a career person. and i have always made my own decisions.
So
did Columbia ask you to use a more commercial image for the cover of "Trampin'
"?
PATTI SMITH: no. columbia loves the album and
has not pressured me about anything creative or political on the album.
I
see in Europe, there is now a jewel case version of "Trampin' "which
features your picture on the cover rather than your feet.
PATTI
SMITH: most of Europe uses jewel cases. our packaging was designed for soft pack
and it did not translate well in the plastic case, so we had to reconfigured it
to look nice in the jewel case. i don't know if it will be available here in America
or not. i have not seen the final package.
Many people
were disappointed that the lyrics weren't included in the CD packaging. Why didn't
you insert a booklet with the CD, like you did for "Gone Again" and
"Gung Ho"?
PATTI SMITH:
we tried to include the lyrics but there are more songs on trampin'. Gandhi is
9 minutes long and Radio Baghdad is 12 minutes long, so there was no room in the
allotted space on any of the packaging for all of those lyrics to be legible.
but people can get the lyrics from our website: www.pattismith.net or you can send a stamped self addressed envelope with the titles wanted to: PHTP,
P. O. Box 188, Mantua, NJ 08051. since my mom passed away, my sister has taken
over those duties, and she will send people the lyrics they wish (from trampin').
there is also a nice lyric booklet offered by Sony when people order it from them
(at: Sony Music Store). there is also a vinyl double album. the cover is the same
as on the new European packaging.
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