#i had decent taste but was incapable of acting well-adjusted about stuff i liked due to a level of emotional intensity about all things

[louderfade]

Patti Smith wasn't butch, but she was definitely macho, albeit in a kind of goofy way--consciously overstated tough guy. It was. a redolent punk pose that came naturally to her, as well it should have: she helped invent it.

She sings like a woman, dresses like a boy, fronts a band of all-male pals and covers not only Lou and Mick but Pete, and when she does Van she doesn't even switch the gender, chanting, "I'm gonna make her mine make her mine make her mine make her mine!" as if that were the most natural thing in the world.

Now, it wasn't like women had never worn unisex hair or little black vests before. What this skinny weirdo offered wasn't androgyny per se but a new use for it: to cut a niche in the music that was neither sexual invitation nor sexual confrontation, like, "Hi! I'm Patti Smith. I'm going to be charismatic. But not sexually charismatic! That way we can be friends."

from Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock, 1997