Symbionese Liberation Army

SYMBIONESE LIBERATION ARMY
 
 
The United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA)  was an American self-styled left-wing revolutionary organization active between 1973 and 1975 that considered itself a vanguard army.  The group committed bank robberies, two murders, and other acts of violence.  The SLA became internationally notorious for kidnapping heiress Patty Hearst, abducting the 19-year-old from Berkeley, California.  Interest increased when Hearst, in audiotaped messages delivered to (and broadcast by) regional news media, announced that she had joined the SLA.  Hearst later said that members of the terrorist group threatened to kill her, held her in close confinement, and sexually assaulted and brainwashed her.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

Patti Smith is renowned for reworking well-known rock standards to fit her vision and also of adding shock value to her music that surely made Alice Cooper smile; and that was true of the band’s first single from 1974, “Hey Joe” b/w “Piss Factory”.  Patti Smith included a monologue about Patty Hearst (who had been kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army earlier that year) in the middle of her rendition of the 1960’s standard; while the latter song relates the salvation she received from the helplessness of her job on an assembly line after discovering a book by French poet Arthur Rimbaud (Jim Morrison of the Doors was similarly enthralled with Rimbaud). 

 

(February 2014)

 

Last edited: April 3, 2021