We’re taking a break from commercialism today to bring you a video of Golden Brown by The Stranglers, a favourite late ’70s to early ’80s British band that opened for the first British tours of American punks The Ramones and Patti Smith. We called it New Wave, but they arose from the punk scene.

Guitarist-vocalist Hugh Cornwall said of the song: The lyrics were about heroin and a girl of Mediterranian origin — her skin was golden brown.

Here is another of their songs, Always the Sun: 

And here’s two versions of another, European Female:

And the last song, Skin Deep:

This Patti Smith song, Because the Night, was co-written in 1978 with Bruce Springsteen:

Here’s Patti’s version:

Here’s a more recent version by Patti:

My daughter recently went to New York and saw Patti relaxing on the beach. You have to know where the beach is….

And here’s Patti & Neil Young singing Helpless: