Before Punk: The Songs That Started It All

Van Morrison wrote three chords, a one-note guitar riff, and a lyric consisting almost entirely of a girl’s name and a list of things she does. Them’s recording was raw enough to pass as punk twelve years later. The Shadows of Knight had an American hit with their cover in 1966. Patti Smith covered it in 1975 and placed punk’s American chapter inside the same musical tradition Morrison had started.