Tuesday 11 August 2009

Patti Smith - Piss Factory


"I got this job in a piss factory inspecting pipe....but these bitches are just too lame to understand, too goddamned grateful to get this job, to know they're getting screwed up the ass"


Every line in this song is important, not only to the song itself but also to the listener. They spell out all the things you need to know about life - or how to get one if you haven't managed to fashion a life for yourself yet. The trick is to be born in a godforsaken backwater full of cock-eyed bastards and wasters, then dream the first sixteen years of your life away fantasising over the bright lights of New York or Budapest or Lahore or the nearest destination where you can move and finally realise and live inside the desire that paralyses you in your provincial nightmare.


"I lay back. I get my nerve up. I take a swig of Romilar"


Getting high from cough medicine is a different buzz to composing a great tweet, sure enough. Are they comparable? I don't know. Me, I'd favour Romilar every time, it's more social.


"I would rather smell the way boys smell. Oh those schoolboys...the way their legs flap under the desks in study hall. That odor rising roses and ammonia. And the way their dicks droop like lilacs"


The clipped piano lines under Patti's poetry are to me the true essence of punk rock. They're structured, influential, powerful, wild and desperate. They're black. They're life changing.


"I got something to hide here called desire. And I will get out of here. I'm gonna get out of here, I'm gonna get on that train. I'm gonna be somebody, I'm gonna get on that train, go to New York City. I'm gonna be so bad I'm gonna be a big star and I will never return"


Don't ever allow yourself to be crippled by the town you were born in.


Piss Factory by Patti Smith at Spotify


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