Punk Rock Countdown: No. 30 "Gloria," by Patti Smith Punk rock's poet and an influential musician and journalist from New York's Bowery scene, Patti Smith took an upbeat Van Morrison hit and turned it inside out. From the outset, Smith rejects salvation -- "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine," she sings -- and claims her sins as her own. Fully aware of her ultimate fate, she goes on to paint a word-picture of youthful lust.
Smith's poetic songs always contain disturbing images, but even in spite of her own protests -- her insistence that "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine" -- there runs the implicit acknowledgement that salvation exists, and can exist. The words Patti Smith speaks -- the "no thanks!" to the limited-time offer -- carry with them an acceptance of the truth of salvation. Far from being nihilism, Smith's rejection means that Christ's salvific work matters -- whether she intends to make that point or not.