#41 Horses by Patti Smith
The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time
- 2025 Album Rank
- 41
- 2011 Album Rank
- 49
- Total Points
- 1318
- Year Released
- 1975
- Billboard 200 Chart Peak
- 47
- Weeks at #1
- N/A
- RIAA Sales Certification
- N/A (Sold under 500,000 copies)
- Buy Album
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Horses Album Details
Released in November 1975, Horses was Patti Smith's radical declaration of artistic and musical freedom. A fusion of punk's raw spirit, beat poetry, and rock and roll mythology, the album shattered conventions and helped launch the New York punk movement. Produced by John Cale of the Velvet Underground, Horses reimagines the relationship between poetry and music, with Smith channeling Rimbaud, Burroughs, and Jimi Hendrix through electric guitar and improvisational lyricism.
From the opening salvo, "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine", Smith reinvents Van Morrison's "Gloria" as a feminist-punk manifesto. The album veers from ecstatic visions to fragmented narrative rants, often stretching songs into sprawling, incantatory performances. With its stark cover photo by Robert Mapplethorpe and its mix of fury, reverence, and defiance, Horses remains a singular artistic statement, confrontational, literary, and still ahead of its time.
Interesting Facts about Horses
Horses Track List
- The opening track, "Gloria," is a reinvention of the Them song, but only retains the chorus, the verses are Smith's own creation, blending spoken-word poetry with rock fervor.
- Robert Mapplethorpe, Smith's close friend and former partner, took the iconic black-and-white cover photo. She wore a thrift-store man's shirt and jacket slung over her shoulder, a deliberate play on gender presentation.
- John Cale was brought in as producer because of his experimental background with The Velvet Underground. Smith originally wanted to work with Phil Spector, but the label vetoed that idea due to Spector's volatility.
- "Birdland," one of the album's centerpiece tracks, was improvised in a single take. Inspired by Peter Reich's memoir A Book of Dreams, it blends childhood loss, alien abduction, and mystical longing into a hypnotic monologue.
- Though the band didn't include many traditional punk musicians, their sound raw, minimal, and urgent laid the foundation for punk aesthetics. Guitarist Lenny Kaye was a rock historian and had compiled the Nuggets garage rock anthology before joining Smith.
- The album was recorded at Electric Lady Studios, the complex built by Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was a profound influence on Smith, who wrote poetry about him after his death.
- "Land" is a three-part epic incorporating "Horses," "Land of a Thousand Dances," and "La Mer (De)." The suite blends storytelling, repetition, and stream-of-consciousness language in a structure unlike any mainstream rock song.
- Smith dedicated the album to several muses and inspirations in the liner notes: "To Arthur Rimbaud and all images born of the sea." She often cited Rimbaud and William Blake as literary idols.
- Despite its avant-garde qualities, Horses was critically acclaimed and commercially successful. It reached No. 47 on the Billboard 200, an impressive showing for such an experimental debut.
- The minimalist punk poetry of Horses inspired countless artists, including Michael Stipe, Siouxsie Sioux, and Courtney Love. R.E.M. would later record with Smith, who remained a revered figure in alternative music circles.
- The track "Elegie" was recorded on the fifth anniversary of Hendrix's death and was co-written with Allen Lanier of Blue Öyster Cult, with whom Smith had a relationship.
- In 2010, Patti Smith published her memoir Just Kids, which chronicled the creation of Horses, her relationship with Mapplethorpe, and her journey through the New York underground scene.
- The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2021 for its cultural and historical significance.
- Gloria
- Redondo Beach
- Birdland
- Free Money
- Kimberly
- Break It Up
- Land: Horses / Land of a Thousand Dances / La Mer (De)
- Elegie
