100 greatest albums in the days of the pandemic: Gone Again

There is a kind of pattern in these 100 greatest albums I'm writing about, with each album being individually the greatest album ever. A seminal artist makes an album that revolutionizes music, that is essential, and revolutionary. 

And I set that aside. 

A decade or two later they make something else. It's just a little more personal and somehow deeper, with nothing to prove, but it doesn't add much to the evolution of music and its genres. 

And who cares. 

That, that later album, rarely written into the sacred book of the culture, is the album. 

At least, for me.

And so it is with this one. Patti Smith made an essential album that went some long way into ushering in all of punk rock. It also included maybe the greatest line of Rock N' Roll history: 

"Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine." 

But... whatever.

Let's move a couple decades forward. 

Let's talk about the people she loved dying; husband, brother, close friend. 

Even Kurt Cobain takes his place:

Boy boy
Just a boy
Just a little boy
Just a little boy
Who will never grow 

Let's talk about Gone Again. All chants and hypnosis, rage and wisdom, grief and, oh, I wanted to say redemption because it sounded good. I don't know about redemption, almost nothing at all. Death is the bottom falling out. Falling out forever. There are some things we will never, ever, ever get back. 

In the end, all of them.

Hold on.




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