Rock 'n' roll and soul have always flirted with incoherence, subjecting words to the stress of passion, encouraging language to approach the condition of music, and at the furthest instance leaping outside meaning into the pure emotion of falsetto, growl or roar. In 'Radio Ethiopia,' Smith makes this momentary breakdown of meaning into the entire body of the song. On 'Land,' 'Radio Ethiopia,' and other songs, Smith is in revolt against syntax and diction. I wouldn't learn my grammar . . . No one explained to me that I could transfer it into something celestial. . .
Some people are rebels and wear leather jackets and slice up people.
We are different rebels. We wouldn't learn our grammar and we wouldn't learn our chord structures. In the sleevenotes to Radio Ethiopia, Smith invokes the freedom 'to defy the social order and break the slow kill of monotony. . . . Smith envisions herself as both the music's charismatic center, as the ringleader of chaos, and as a figure who vaporizes in the topsy- turvy tumult she's instigated, because she is the conduit of other's desires. Patti Smith tried to be the first female savior- shaman in rock history.