Taylor Swift mentioned Patti Smith in a track on her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, and Patti thanked the singer for her shoutout.
In her song, “The Tortured Poets Department” (same title as her album), 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.'”
On her Instagram, Patti responded to Taylor’s shoutout with two photos of her reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas. The photos were in black and white, matching the vibe of Taylor’s TTPD.
Patti captioned the photos, “This is saying I was moved to be mentioned in the company of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Thank you, Taylor.”
Back in 2019, Patti sang Taylor’s praises in an interview with The New York Times.
“She’s a pop star who’s under tremendous scrutiny all the time, and one can’t imagine what that’s like,” she said. “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,” she added. “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?”
Patti Smith Among Many Shoutouts From Taylor Swift on ‘TTPD’
Patti took to Instagram to express her gratitude to Taylor, who gave her a lovely shoutout in track #2. Taylor also name-dropped other individuals in TTPD.
For example, the same song includes the line, “We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.” Additionally, Taylor references her friends Lucy and Jack (supposedly Lucy Dacus and Jack Antonoff, fellow musicians and friends of Taylor).
“But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave / And I had said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen,” the lyrics go.
She also mentioned stars like Clara Bow and Stevie Nicks in her song “Clara Bow.”
“‘You look like Clara Bow in this light / Remarkable / All your life, did you know / You’d be picked like a rose.'” and “‘You look like Stevie Nicks / In ’75, the hair and lips / Crowd goes wild at her fingertips / Half moonshine, a full eclipse.'”
Fans have loved the references throughout her new album. Many also adore the fact that she seems to uplift others — especially women — in her industry.