Patti Smith responds to Taylor Swift name-check on ‘The Tortured Poets Department’

nme.com:

Patti Smith has responded to Taylor Swift inserting her name into the title track of her new album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’.In the song, Swift makes reference to Smith and the poet Dylan Thomas in the lyric: “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.’”It is thought that the title track refers to her short-lived relationship with The 1975‘s Matty Healy and her comment about Smith and Dylan refers to the 1975 frontman and herself in the sense that the pair should not take themselves so seriously and they are just “modern idiots”, according to Today.Now, Smith has had her say on her name being dropped in the song in a social media post featuring a photo of her reading Thomas. “This is saying I was moved to be mentioned in the company of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

Thank you Taylor.”A post shared by This is Patti Smith (@thisispattismith)Numerous artists are namechecked throughout ‘The Tortured Poets Department’.

The title track refers to a “Lucy”, which fans seem convinced is a reference to Lucy Dacus, one third of the Grammy-winning group boygenius.