“Gloria” by Patti Smith

"Gloria" was Van Morrison's song first, cut with his band Them in 1964, but Patti Smith made it into something else entirely on Horses, her 1975 debut album. She took the garage-rock staple apart and rebuilt it with verses drawn from her own poems and writing, so the song comes out as much Smith's as Morrison's: a rock and roll standard hijacked by a poet who knew exactly what she was doing with it.

The reinvention has only gained standing since, and critics routinely put her version, like Them's original, on their lists of the greatest songs ever made.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.