Essay ǀ Dancing well to fear – Friday

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One might expect a homage, a hymn, “radically subjective declarations of love”. At least that’s how Kiwi-Verlag presents a series in which authors deal with their favorite bands. But Helene Hegemann is playing a trick on us with her essay on Patti Smith for the music library, which has now grown to 15 volumes. One shouldn’t expect an eulogy, warns the author, after all, she feels a “diffuse annoyance” when thinking about the American singer. That makes bad things swell: hysterical lack of structure, lethargic splashing around. With Hegemann, however, the irritation of the central nervous system proves to be a tremendous advantage: the text trembles, vibrates and puts a direct line of excitation into the reader’s brain.

What happens then is beyond the reader’s control. Hegemann pushes the text forward like a song by Patti Smith. In Horses it says: “Got to lose control and then you take control.” Under no circumstances does Hegemann want to run the risk of stylizing Patti Smith into an icon or, even worse, a “mascot” of high culture. It is enough for her that the singer herself “has completely given up the distance to this society”. How it came about that this anarchic spirit was transformed into guruhood is one of the questions that Hegemann asks in this volume. The approach is not unlike the motto of Carl Hegemann, Christoph Schlingensief’s sparring partner, dramaturge and father of the author: “Nothing is true without its opposite.” a place from which Helene Hegemann, Patti Smith and Christoph Schlingensief elicited or elicited the best.

Logically, the author is not satisfied with clichés like “Godmother of Punk” when she tries to capture Patti. Brief characteristics such as “a rock legend from New York, between literary punk and ecstasy and respectful blasphemy on the move” are only woven in by Hegemann, because labels are deceptive. Lenny Kaye, Patti’s guitarist, once said that the band was just “punk by association”. Patti Smith’s music is not hard, fast or loud. The “Godmother of Punk” owes its title to the admiration for Arthur Rimbaud, the French poet, anarchist and original punk, who called for the overthrow of governments and dealt in coffee, gold and weapons. Perhaps this fearlessness is actually located on the verge of madness that goes insane from time to time. Schlingensief not only held his buttocks in the camera, but also showed the world with his staging “what it is afraid of”. Patti Smith, on the other hand, shows the world “that you can dance to fear quite well”. In addition to this fear there is something else, and Hegemann shows us that: a desire that rears up and tames at the same time.

Helene Hegemann, who lived in precarious circumstances, who injured herself, who created deceptive but vital escapes, threw herself into a new life after her mother’s death. “Life is full of pain, I’m cruising through my brain,” sings Patti Smith, and Helene Hegemann takes us on this trip. Patti Smith is above all a spiritual companion, a kind of “spiritual animal” that hops lively through the prairie, sometimes more, sometimes less. Patti is also just a person who picks up on Bob Dylan “like a submissive baby animal, but believes that he has torn down enough boundaries to still be able to use the revolutionary image of the free-spirited, independent beast.”

A contradiction? Patti, Helene and Christoph in choir: “You have to go beyond, beyond.”

Helene Hegemann on Patti Smith, Christoph Schlingensief, anarchy and tradition Helene Hegemann KiWi-Taschenbuch 2021, 112 pages, 10 €

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