Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet, and visual artist who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPunk Singer
Date of Birth30 December 1946
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
best coffee cup exciting great life million puts sky whether
For everything bad, there's a million really exciting things, whether it's someone puts out a really great book, there's a new movie, there's a new detective, the sky is unbelievably golden, or you have the best cup of coffee you ever had in your life.
best drawn impulse led performing rock roll taken
It's taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing. I'm not a musician. I never thought of performing in a rock n' roll band. I was just drawn in. It was like being called to duty - I was called to duty, and I did my duty as best as I could.
became best formed fully life loved met robert student though
Robert Mapplethorpe, I met in 1967. He was a student at Pratt, though even as a student a fully formed artist. We went through many things in our life together. He became my loved one, then my best friend.
certainly concept cut except girls piece screaming star tastes trying
I know what that tastes like, to be a rock-and-roll star - to have a limousine, to have girls screaming when they see you, girls trying to cut my hair, get a piece of me. But I don't walk around with a concept of myself as a rock-and-roll star, and certainly not as a musician, because I really can't play anything, except primitively.
good people
I know that some people have different personas for the different things they do, and I'm not criticizing that - maybe it's a good thing - but I'm the same old person, so I take everything in stride.
struck william
I knew William Burroughs really well, and I was always star struck being around him. I adored him.
drew early hear people songs suffer work
I like revisiting my early work, and people like to hear it. I don't make people suffer through any experimentation or new material. When I go see an artist, I want to hear the songs that drew me to them, so I do the same.
I like really hot coffee, not too strong.
activism embraced found interested love poetry political rock roll
I'm not really a musician. I'm a performer, and I love rock n' roll. I've embraced rock n' roll because it encompasses all the things I'm interested in: poetry, revolution, sexuality, political activism - all of these things can be found in rock n' roll.
against energies found good rebelled rein
I had to learn, really, how to rein in my energies and discipline myself. And I found it very very useful. I rebelled against it at first, but it's a good thing to have.
I had a penchant myself for doing several things at once. I wanted to draw, write, speak.
hopefully
As a citizen, hopefully I'm humanist. As an artist, I'm free.
scientists visionary
Artists, musicians, scientists - if you have any kind of visionary aptitude, it's often something that you don't have a choice in. You have to do it.
father help running took walked
It walked up to me and I took off running and went and called my father and said you've got to see this and help me.