I\u2019ve stopped counting the number of times \u201ccoffee\u201d is mentioned in Patti Smith\u2019s M Train<\/a>.<\/em> The short answer is: a lot; coffee is the lifeblood coursing through the entire book. Coffee is the daily elixir of Smith\u2019s life, and she finds great poetry in every sip \u2013 from hand-selected, highland grown beans in Veracruz, to the charred offerings of Styrofoam deli cups \u2013 she wants \u201cto write an aria to coffee.\u201d Yet, quite surprisingly, the poet and songwriter never did. Smith\u2019s connotations with coffee result from her caffeine-fueled memoirs and New York coffee shop patronage, and she is therefore one of the artists I most strongly associate with those bitter brown beans. I imagine that her version of heaven is an eternal corner table in her favorite caf\u00e9, where the brown bread and olive oil never run out and the coffee flows black and hot.<\/p>\n

Considering today is National Coffee Day<\/a>, I can\u2019t help but think about the decades, even centuries long relationship between music and coffee. Who are the musicians who\u2019ve paid homage to the drink named Joe? And which artists, like Smith, evoke coffee shop romanticism without needing to sing of a single sip?<\/p>\n

Since Smith never wrote her aria di caff\u00e8, I can only speculate what coffee represents to her. In M Train <\/em>it signifies ritual; each day of import is commenced with a description of her coffee and breakfast regimen, but not in an Instagram diary manner. Smith isn\u2019t keeping a food journal for fitness purposes. Rather, it seems that every sip of coffee transports her back in time, where she can commune with her beloved Beat poets, and sit in Mohammed Mrabet\u2019s fictional The Beach Caf\u00e9 <\/em>for a little while. Surely it must also evoke her greatest influence, Bob Dylan, and his early days at the Gaslight Caf\u00e9<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Coffee pairs with Bob Dylan just as well as cigarettes (a classic duo we\u2019ll get to in a moment.) From his Greenwich Village coffee shop days and his caffeinated delivery on songs like \u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues\u201d and \u201cTalkin\u2019 New York,\u201d to his 1975 ballad \u201cOne More Cup of Coffee,\u201d Dylan and java go hand-in-hand. In fact, because of his proximity to the Beats, Dylan was one of the musicians who pioneered the image of a rock n\u2019 roll poet holed up in a caf\u00e9, dousing themselves with free refills and stamping out smokes while scribbling lyrics. Smith merely conjured her idols, and eventually became one herself.<\/p>\n