On this day in 1974 years ago, members of a violent, ragtag bunch of
self-styled revolutionaries called the Symbionese Liberation Army
kidnapped Patricia Campbell Hearst, the 19-year-old granddaughter of William
Randolph Hearst, setting off a tragic and bizarre series of events that turned
into something of a bad action flick crossed with a twisted soap opera when
Patty later announced to the world she was renaming herself "Tania" and was
joining her captors and started taking part in bank robberies.
Those were the daze ...
So here's a musical salute, to sweet Patty, starting with this delightful
ditty from the late great Warren Zevon. It's the first time -- only time? -- I
heard her name in a song. (This version is from
Late Night with David Letterman in 2002, about a year before Zevon
died.) I've always wondered if Patty Heart
Back in 1987, Camper Van Beethoven released the mock-ode "Tania" on their
album Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart.
A couple of years before Camper's tune, The Misfits also released a Patty song
on their compilation Legacy of Brutality. It was called
"She."
Though her actually name is never mentioned, the lyrics, by Glenn Danzig, made
it obvious who the song was about:
She walked out with empty arms
Machine gun in her hand
She is good and she is bad
No one understands
She walked in in silence
Never spoke a word
She's got a rich daddy
She's her daddy's girl
This video consists of actual security camera footage of Tania in action:
UPDATED! Thanks to Tommy T. who reminded me of this song a few hours after I
originally posted. It's not about Patty, but two loveable gals named Judy and
Jackie who "went down to Frisco,
joined the SLA ..."
This last video, featuring L7's song in John Waters' movie Serial Mom,
doesn't actually have anything to do with Patty, except that she appeared in
that movie, as well as several other Waters movies. She struck up a
lifelong friendship with the filmmaker
that's actually kind of touching. In Serial Mom she portrayed a juror
who is murdered by Kathleen Turner for the offense of wearing white after
Labor Day.
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