Editing Horses (album) (section)

==Background==
Patti Smith and her [[backup band|backing band]] gave frequent live performances throughout 1974, and by the following year they had established themselves as a popular act within the New York City underground [[rock music]] scene, especially elevated in early 1975 by their highly attended two-month [[concert residency|residency]] at the New York City club [[CBGB]] with the band [[Television (band)|Television]].<ref name="Huey">{{cite web |url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/patti-smith-mn0000747445/biography |title=Patti Smith |publisher=[[AllMusic]] |access-date=October 6, 2015 |last=Huey |first=Steve}}</ref><ref name="Reynolds">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/may/22/popandrock1 |title='Even as a child, I felt like an alien' |newspaper=[[The Observer]] |location=London |date=May 22, 2005 |access-date=September 11, 2016 |last=Reynolds |first=Simon |author-link=Simon Reynolds}}</ref> The hype surrounding the residency brought Smith to the attention of music industry executive [[Clive Davis]], who was scouting for artists to sign to his recently launched label [[Arista Records]].<ref name="Reynolds"/> After being impressed by one of her live performances at CBGB, Davis offered Smith a seven-album recording deal with Arista, and she signed to the label in April 1975.{{sfn|Thompson|2011|p=109}}

Smith had written [[poetry]] for several years before becoming a musician, and entered the music industry because she thought "the presentation of poetry wasn't vibrant enough". For her debut album, her primary aim was to merge poetry and rock music, which then developed into a "larger mission" to "pump blood back into the heart of [[rock and roll|rock'n'roll]]".<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BpE-C2vX2LcC&pg=PA102 |title=In the three decades since her debut, Patti Smith, rock's poet laureate and subject of a new documentary, found domestic bliss and endured tragic loss. That longevity shocks even her: 'When I did Horses, I never expected to make another album.' |magazine=[[Spin (magazine)|Spin]] |location=New York |volume=24 |issue=9 |date=September 2008 |access-date=August 1, 2024 |last=Marchese |first=David |author-link=David Marchese |pages=102–104, 106, 108}}</ref> The title ''Horses'' reflected Smith's desire for a rejuvenation of rock music, which she found had grown "calm" in reaction to the social turmoil of the 1960s and the deaths of numerous prominent rock musicians of that era.<ref name="Hilburn">{{cite news |title=Patti Smith—a Return of Passion |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=November 25, 1975 |last=Hilburn |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Hilburn}}</ref> "Psychologically, somewhere in our hearts," she stated shortly after the album's release, "we were all screwed up because those people died{{nbsp}}... We all had to pull ourselves together. To me, that's why our record's called ''Horses''. We had to pull the reins on ourselves to recharge ourselves{{nbsp}}... We've gotten ourselves back together. It's time to let the horses loose again. We're ready to start moving again."<ref name="Hilburn"/>

Smith later reflected that she had envisioned ''Horses'' as a record bridging the "great artists that we had just lost" and the next generation of rockers, who she hoped would "be less materialistic, more bonded with the people and not so glamorous", and that from a more humanistic perspective, she had also aimed "to reach out to other disenfranchised people" like herself.<ref>{{cite interview |last=Smith |first=Patti |subject-link=Patti Smith |interviewer=[[Terry Gross]] |title='Just Kids': Punk Icon Patti Smith Looks Back |work=[[Fresh Air]] |date=January 19, 2010 |publisher=[[NPR]] |url=https://www.npr.org/transcripts/122722618?storyId=122722618 |access-date=August 1, 2024}}</ref> Smith said, "I was consciously trying to make a record that would make a certain type of person not feel alone. People who were like me, different{{nbsp}}... I wasn't targeting the whole world. I wasn't trying to make a hit record."<ref>{{cite interview |last=Smith |first=Patti |interviewer=Tracey Tanenbaum |title=Intersections: Patti Smith, Poet Laureate of Punk |work=[[Morning Edition]] |date=April 12, 2004 |publisher=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/2004/04/12/1814648/intersections-patti-smith-poet-laureate-of-punk |access-date=October 8, 2015}}</ref>