People Have the Power

"People Have the Power" is a rock song written by Patti Smith and Fred "Sonic" Smith, and released as a lead single from Patti Smith 1988 album Dream of Life. The cover photograph is by Robert Mapplethorpe. The music video is filmed mostly in black-and-white and features Patti Smith singing, writing and walking.

"People Have the Power"
Single by Patti Smith
from the album Dream of Life
B-side"Where Duty Calls",
"Wild Leaves"
ReleasedJune 1, 1988 (1988-06-01)[1]
RecordedThe Hit Factory
GenreRock
Length5:07
LabelArista
Songwriter(s)Patti Smith, Fred Smith
Producer(s)Fred Smith, Jimmy Iovine
Patti Smith singles chronology
"So You Want
to Be (A Rock 'n' Roll Star)"
(1979)		 "People Have the Power"
(1988)		 "Looking for You (I Was)"
(1988)
Audio sample
  • file
  • help

The song was ranked number 22 on NME magazine's list of the "Singles of the Year".[2]

For most of U2's Innocence + Experience Tour, the group used "People Have the Power" as its entrance music. Smith herself joined them to close their show with the song at London's O2 Arena on October 29, 2015, as well as the December 6, 2015 show at Accorhotels Arena in Paris. On December 7, to close their show and the tour at Accorhotels Arena, U2 invited The Eagles of Death Metal to sing this song, for their first public live performance after the slaughter which occurred during their show at the Bataclan in Paris on November 13, 2015.

The song was used as intro music for the August 4, 2015 episode of Opie with Jim Norton. The song drew the ire of listeners, so two different covers were played to open the August 5 and August 6, 2015 shows..

Charts
Chart (1988)[3][4] Position
Mainstream Rock Tracks 19
UK Singles Chart 97

Notes
  1. https://www.song365.mobi/album/patti-smith-dream-of-life-27755.html
  2. "End of Year Lists". Acclaimed Music. Retrieved 2008-03-04.
  3. "Billboard chart". Allmusic. Retrieved 2008-03-04.
  4. "UK chart". Retrieved 2008-03-04.
gollark: That's cool, but my keyboard has 100ish buttons on it.
gollark: That's *probably* many orders of magnitude more power than the entire sun.
gollark: Wait, 500-decibel fans? Decibels are logarithmic.
gollark: Don't worry, they aren't actually bound to anything.
gollark: My mouse has a bunch of spare buttons on it. Maybe I could bind one of those to it.
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