Diving in to my second all-time favorite Patti Smith song, “Redondo Beach”, along with a cover of the song by Morrissey. Let’s give the original, and the cover version the Top 5 treatment.

What is your favorite Patti Smith song? Do you have any favorite covers of her music?

“You’ll never return into my arms,
’cause you were gone gone.
Never return into my arms,
’cause you were gone gone.”

“Redondo Beach” by Patti Smith
from the album, Horses (1975)

“Redondo Beach” (live) by Morrissey
from the album, Live At Earl’s Court (2005)

My Top 5 – September 14, 2011

1. I fell in love with Patti Smith’s album, Horses, the month I first moved out on my own. Well, on my own with my boyfriend at the time. He and I had bought a stack of albums from a used record store in Berkeley, where we’d visited a few weeks prior to moving in together. As we unpacked boxes we spun the new-to-us vinyl. “Redondo Beach” was my stand-out favorite from the start, and I’ve loved it ever since.

2. Late at night I tend to watch procedural crime dramas. There’s something about detectives and my insomnia that work well together. “Redondo Beach” reminds me of a few episodes of detective/investigative/procedural dramas I’ve seen in the middle of the night, as well as a bit of both the books Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier) and The Shining (Stephen King), and how I stayed up late into the night to read both when I was 17 years old.

3. I think I’d like to write a short story someday inspired by the characters in “Redondo Beach”. Who is the girl washed up on the shore? Who did she run from? Why did she choose to take the ultimate escape, diving and dying in the ocean’s waves? I’d like to write her, her story, and her reasons.

4. I did create a character in a novel I’m still tinkering with who is inspired partly by Patti Smith. There’s a scene between the two main characters, one of their first interactions on the page. They are listening to another of Patti’s songs that I love (my all-time favorite Patti Smith song), “Dancing Barefoot.”

5. I’m actually quite fond of Morrissey’s cover of “Redondo Beach”, which is surprising because I’m not much of a fan of him, or his music.