patti smith on trampin'
page seven

my blakean year

William Blake, the renowned English painter, poet, mystic and revolutionary has been a longtime source of inspiration for Patti Smith, as well as many other poets, including Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg astutely noted that, "Blake was a catalytic poet who turned me on to the fact that poetry could actually waken people's consciousness. It completely changed my attitude toward poetry. I realized it was possible to reproduce in a poem some body rhythm which, if inserted in another person's body, would catalyze a similar experience, because that's what happened to me. And that sometimes seems to be the effect of my own poetry on other people, to waken some awareness of a vastness or a feeling of the depth of space." Of course, Ginsberg's description applies even more aptly to Patti Smith, whose poetry, when set to music, summons up far more power than a cold reading can usually generate. Her transcendent "Birdland," from "Horses" is a prime example, where she first referenced William Blake and began "waking people's consciousness'."

Did you feel that you were receiving some of Blake's energies or spirit when you were writing "My Blakean Year" or "Climbing Boy"?

PATTI SMITH: i have definitely felt his presence performing climbing boy which oliver and i wrote.

"Climbing Boy," is a Blake-inspired song that I enjoyed tremendously. Will it be released in the future?

PATTI SMITH: i am sure it will be recorded. i like it very much.

I also enjoyed the several different versions of "Higher Learning - Contemplation" which seem to have been overlooked, since you haven't performed the song very often. Might you "contemplate" re-visiting the song during your summer tour?

PATTI SMITH: i wrote higher learning as a band experience. i am certain we will revisit it. we have several tracks of it to do something with in the future.

You recited an early version of "My Blakean Year" back in Dec, 2001 - did writing it entail a longer period of time than some of the other songs on "Trampin' " which you indicated were written fairly quickly?

PATTI SMITH: i wrote that song myself. i actually didn't realize i had started it so long ago. i think i began writing it in response to the loss of my land. i had owned the land (in New Jersey) that hoedown hall was on and the government forced it away through eminent domain. it was a painful time. that was the strife of my blakean year.

PATTI SMITH: no, but when allen was dying oliver and i were among those keeping vigil. several hours passed and i spent some time looking through allen's blake books with his penciled notations. his love for blake issued forth from every page.

ALLEN GINSBERG: In 1973 in London I was with William Burroughs on St. James Street and he said, "Anybody who makes an impression on you is a vampire." And in a dream later that night I was looking out of a mullioned pub window in London, and I had an uncanny feeling of some vampire walking down the street and approaching me and as I looked out of the window there was this long-haired, balding, round moon faced figure with black circles under his eyes, fanged but with human teeth and a malevolent expression on his face, and it was William Blake, come to get me again. So I said, "Ah, at last!" And then I thought that I'd go out and get that bastard and check him out. "Vampire, eh? He's been feeding on my consciousness long enough." And when I went out to confront him, he got scared and ran away and didn't want to be revealed. And that was the end of my dream. The interesting thing to me is that the voice I heard as Blake's voice was very deep and basso, and my voice at the time was much higher. And much later the voice that I heard was something that I actually approximated when I sang my own "Father Death Blues"-that very deep quiet heart voice, relatively tender. I think all the mantra chanting I did through the Sixties deepened my voice so that it sank deeper and deeper into my body and down from my throat into my heart area.