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Dear MommySeahorse and dharmabum70 - Thank you both so much. I really appreciate it! Tiffany

You may find particularly interesting, the liner notes of "Easter." Her account of poet Arthur Rimaud on the day of his first communion where he breaks the conformity and formation of the communion procession and runs past the chapel onto a bridge where he jumps off and "into the cold and finite waters of a river that led to the warm and infinite blood of Christ."
There is also the song "Ghost Dance" inspired by the Sioux shaman Wovoka's Ghost Dance religion which spread throughout the Southwest and Plains during the 1880s and ended with the government's Wounded Knee massacre of the Lakota tribe in 1890. You may have to actually research the ghost dance itself, but the spirit of the Lakota's beliefs are captured in the song which itself is a testament to everything Patti istranscendance, spiritual awareness, defiance, etc"We shall live again."
Other songs that deal with religious questioning, or sexuality are "Priviledge" (Set Me Free), "Dancing Barefoot", "Pissing in a River". You can even somehow incorporate the ever present awareness of death throughout her work-epecially on "Dream of Life" and "Gone Again"religious themes and the ultimate quetion of life and death weave in and out of her entire career. BTW, great topic. Enjoy it.

Hi Tiffany; you might try oceanstar.com, which has a really good selection of articles and interviews with Patti going back to the Seventies, in which she talks about her work. (I accessed this by doing a google search on Patti interviews) - hope this helps. Also there are two biographies about her, by Victor Bockris and Nick Johnstone, which have quite a lot of discussion about her lyrics and poetry. Good luck with your research!