Patti Smith's historical importance probably can't be overstated. From the release of Horses in 1975 she provided the spark for several generations of New York and US punk/ post- punk and indie musicians and her entire being is an act of willpower- inspired by transformative powers of rock 'n' roll she decided to become an androgynous poet/ punk and that's exactly what she did. The Patti Smith Group played every venue New York had to offer in the mid- to- late 1970s, from CBGBs upwards while recording four albums- Horses, Radio Ethiopia, Easter and Wave. The last one of those four, 1979's Wave, had this as a single...
Less a song, more an incantation (as someone at YouTube rather succinctly puts it). Dancing Barefoot has become one of her best loved and most covered songs. It doesn't sound specifically 1979 either, it could just as easily have been recorded in 1995 or 2001- a two chord acoustic guitar riff, an electric on top, folk rock/ indie punk and Patti giving her all lyrically, a song (according to the sleeve notes) dedicated to women such as Amedeo Modigliani's mistress Jeanne Hebuterne. Love as addiction (heroin and heroine used deliberately in the lyric), love as sublimation, love as intoxication.
After the release of Dancing Barefoot as a single Patti withdrew and semi- retired, the band fell apart and she spent most of the next decade at home with husband Fred 'Sonic' Smith, raising their two children Jesse and Jackson.
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