Songfacts®:

• In this spoken-word song, Patti Smith sounds like a star-struck teenager talking to one of her idols. But it's not a rock star she's speaking with, it's Pope John Paul I, whom she greatly admired. The song shows how idolatry is fluid, and just as entertainers will wave to throngs of adoring fans from their balconies, so will the pope.
  
  Smith was sincere in her sentiment. John Paul I was famous for his humility and his smile. He was the first pope to choose two names, honoring the two who served before him: Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI. Smith was shocked when he died on September 28, 1978, just 33 days into his papacy.
• "Wave" is the title track to Patti Smith's fourth album, released in 1979. After wrapping up a tour that year, she broke up her band and focused on raising a family. In 1980, she married Fred "Sonic" Smith of the seminal rock band MC5 and moved to Detroit, where that band was based. She and Fred raised two children, and Patti stayed largely out of the pubic eye until returning in 1988 with the album Dream Of Life, co-produced by her husband.
  
  Fred Smith, the subject of the Wave track "Frederick," died from a heart attack in 1994. Just weeks later, Patti's younger brother Todd died from a stroke. She put out her next album, Gone Again, largely a tribute to Fred and Todd, in 1996.
• The title has double meaning: the wave of the pope and waves on a beach. Smith's piano player, Richard Sohl, is credited for creating the ocean effects on the song.