If in doubt, listen to Patti. I have been good recently, varied my musical diet with jazz and new distractions, but sometimes there is nothing else for it, but Patti, that feminine mouthpiece of the Muse, incantation reciting don’t give a fucking shit about The Man, Gloria herself. There is of course, Them’s original Gloria, there is The Doors’ dirty white boy blues, even Jimi Hendrix with his tongue in cheek poke fun at the rest of the band psychedelic jam, which send’s Jimi, Gloria, and the whole groovy gang with the groovy green, running from the law and a marijuana charge, “Ggggg-Gloria…Get off my chest, Gloria!” he stutters with a nonchalance that would make the Who boys proud, but The Gloria, the pinnacle of filthy, dirty, desperate sex-driven, unapologetic longing, belongs to Patti Smith. Specifically, Patti, 1979, Germany.
I remember listening to this as a young woman, my own Gloria in her rainbow stripped long socks and dark curls tumbling over her eyes beckoning me over thrillingly as Patti sang,”Im true to you..true to you”, in a rush of teenage lust and obsession. What’s your name? Give me your name…who cares, its just some Gloria, some party somewhere sometime – Gloria eternal, Gloria immortal, Gloria who does not age or wither or fade, just transforms into one shining Goddess, unrepentant, unbowed, owning herself, her sex giving and taking, and inseminating with ideas and thoughts and life, so much life, as Patti writhes on the stage spellbound, carnal, motion and action and sound and lust, owning herself for now and for ever more.
Its all just dancing barefoot naked for the Goddess, throwing yourself upon the Furies and the Muses, and the Moon pulling you towards Herself, Diana-like, perfect, inviolate and wanton, Medusa calling and Ariadne weaving the strings of ideas, it is switchblades preferred and pale strange faces holding candles and absinthe-drowned sugarcubes. Holy shit! Yes. Holy shit, Patti. It is communing with the Graces, daughters of Zeus, and coming up from the deeps with a single pearl: I am my own woman, and there she is. G – L – O – R – IIIIIIII – A. Gloria!