Taylor Swift’s new record just got a nod from punk’s poet laureate, Patti Smith.
On her new album’s title track, The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor sings: “I laughed in your face and said, ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas / I’m not Patti Smith / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel / We’re modern idiots’.”
In response, the New York counterculture icon posted a black-and whit- Instagram photo of herself smiling behind a copy of Dylan Thomas’ Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Dog.
“This is saying I was moved to be mentioned in the company of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas,” she captioned the post. “Thank you, Taylor.”
While Patti and Taylor may seem worlds apart, the Horses artist talked about sympathising with the Reputation singer in a 2019 profile for the New York Times.
Asked if artists like Taylor should be more politically engaged in the era of Donald Trump, Patti said: “She’s a pop star who’s under tremendous scrutiny all the time, and one can’t imagine what that’s like. It’s unbelievable to not be able to go anywhere, do anything, have messy hair.”
“And I’m sure that she’s trying to do something good,” the singer and former muse of Robert Mapplethorpe went on.
“She’s not trying to do something bad. And if it influences some of her avid fans to open up their thoughts, what does it matter?”
Last month, Patti gave her seal of approval to another modern pop star, when she co-signed Dua Lipa’s spot on Time’s annual list of 100 Most Influential People.