Released in 1975, the début album by American songwriter, poet, artist, and memoirist Patti Smith captured a volatile alchemy of past and future modes. Horses came out of the much-mythologised rock scene of 1970s New York City, but also fed on the unbridled lyrical freedom of Beat poetry, the firmer narrative tradition of hymns, and the bodily release of formative 1960s rock and soul.

Smith advertised rather than masked these diffuse influences, basing several of the album's tracks around spirited hybrids of her original songs and transformed cover versions. Thus, songs like the rock standard 'Gloria' (penned by Van Morrison for his band Them) and the oft-covered soul romp 'Land of a Thousand Dances' became absorbed in the creative wellspring of Horses, mingling the known origins of rock'n'roll with Smith's free-flowing openness of expression.