“That was his number-one preoccupation. Not to free Tibet, but to take in hand a global concern that was going to affect us all, on a scale we haven’t seen before.”
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Patricia Lee Smith is an American singer, songwriter, poet, and author. Her 1975 debut album, Horses, made her an influential member of the New York City–based punk rock movement. Smith has fused rock and poetry in her work. In 1978, her most widely known song, "Because the Night", co-written with Bruce Springsteen, reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number five on the UK Singles…
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entertainment · American singer and songwriter (born 1946) · singer-songwriter · poet · visual artist · human rights defender · writer · guitarist · singer · composer · musician · draftsperson · also Patti Smith, Patricia Lee Smith, Pattie Smith, Smith
Born 30 December 1946 · Q557
159 published statements · 0 followers
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I always thought that life was like God’s movie. I wanted to be in a movie but it didn’t happen. But I got a good role in God’s movie!
85%The GuardianSource
“That was his number-one preoccupation. Not to free Tibet, but to take in hand a global concern that was going to affect us all, on a scale we haven’t seen before.”
“I always thought that life was like God’s movie. I wanted to be in a movie but it didn’t happen. But I got a good role in God’s movie!”
BroadwayWorld: Dua Lipa, Patti Smith, Zadie Smith y más en la programación de octubre de 2026 del Southbank Centre
BroadwayWorld: Dua Lipa, Patti Smith, Zadie Smith & More Set for Southbank Centre's October 2026 Programming
Patch: Chatham Police 'Show Up' For Patti Smith Barrett During Goal Zero Campaign
whoopsee.it: Far apart, yet still close: A$AP Rocky listens to Patti Smith in a convertible, and Rihanna goes out to dinner in New York
OkDiario: Patti Smith, Premio Princesa de Asturias de las Artes 2026: rock, poesía y activismo como forma de vida
Far Out Magazine: The “important” voice Patti Smith never got tired of: “Authentic”
Eye On Annapolis: Patti Smith Bringing Five Decades of Rock, Poetry and Rebellion to Maryland Hall
Efe Eme: Gone again , de Patti Smith. Volver para seguir haciendo historia
grunge.com: The 1964 Van Morrison Song Patti Smith Turned Into A Punk Rock Classic
Yahoo: Patti Smith Has A Hunky Hollywood Son (Is He Single?)
La Razón de México: Patti Smith, el punk es amor
Shepherd Express: Enter to Win Tickets to Patti Smith at Riverside Theater!
shortlist.com: Patti Smith's Ultimate Playlist: The tracks that inspired the punk icon
Far Out Magazine: The musician Patti Smith was desperate to work with: “We fought a lot”
The Frederick News-Post: A giddy Patti Smith meets fellow Chicago legend, Pope Leo XIV, and says 'hi' - The Frederick News-Post
thelist.com: Meet Jackson Smith, The Hunky, Rocker Son Of Music Icon Patti Smith
Tampa Bay Times: Enjoy Tampa Bay arts experiences, from ‘Penelope’ to Patti Smith portraits
Public attention spiked: 9,112 Wikipedia readers in one day, 3.2× the usual 2,876, with 0 article edits.
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Public attention spiked: 17,343 Wikipedia readers in one day, 6× the usual 2,876, with 0 article edits. Coverage that week: “Patti Smith meets with Pope Leo at the Vatican” (Yahoo).
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Yahoo: Patti Smith meets with Pope Leo at the Vatican
The Irish Times: Patti Smith review: Last of the poet rock stars takes the stage on a scorching Galway night
Awarded Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts (2026).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Guardian: ‘We’re catalysts of the new plague’ – from the archive, Patti Smith interviewed in 1976
The Guardian: Bread of Angels: A Memoir, by Patti Smith review – a wild ride with the poet of punk
The Guardian: Defiance, desire and devastation: Patti Smith’s 20 greatest songs – ranked!
Released album “Another Dimension (live Los Angeles ’76)”.
Released album “Correspondences, Volume Two”.
The Guardian: Patti Smith to publish ‘intimate’ new memoir, Bread of Angels
The Guardian: Patti Smith to perform Horses in full on 50th anniversary tour
Released album “Correspondences, Vol. 1”.
Smith appeared as herself in Turn in the Wound, a documentary by Abel Ferrara about performance, poetry, music and the experience of people at war, focusing on life in Kyiv since the beginning of the Russian invasion of
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Released album “CBGB New York 1979”.
Released album “Live in Oregon 1978”.
Released album “The Perfect Vision Reworkings”.
Awarded Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (2022).
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Awarded Officer of the Legion of Honour (2022).
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Released album “Curated by Record Store Day”.
Released album “Summer Cannibals”.
Released album “CBGB’s 1979”.
Released album “Peradam”.
Smith contributed signed first-edition copies of her books to the Passages bookshop in Portland, Oregon after the store's valuable first-edition and other books by various authors were stolen in a burglary
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“a cultural luminary whose work helps us understand and interpret the human condition in powerful and original ways”
Released album “Mummer Love”.
Released album “Year of the Monkey”.
Released album “CBGBs 1979”.
Won Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts (2019).
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Awarded honorary doctor of the University of Padua (2019).
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Released album “The Peyote Dance”.
Released her book, Year of the Monkey
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Released album “Broadcast Collection 1975–1979”.
A new edition of Just Kids was published featuring additional photographs and illustrations
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The English band Florence and the Machine dedicated the High as Hope album song "Patricia" to Smith
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Awarded honorary doctorate from the University of Parma (2017).
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Smith appeared as herself in Song to Song opposite Rooney Mara and Ryan Gosling, directed by Terrence Malick
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Smith attended the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm on behalf of Bob Dylan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who could not be present due to prior commitments
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Released album “Kimberly”.
Released album “Killer Road”.
Smith spoke, read poetry, and performed several songs along with her daughter Jesse at Nader's Breaking Through Power conference at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D
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Smith performed "People Have the Power" at Riverside Church in Manhattan to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Democracy Now, where she was joined by Michael Stipe
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Made an appearance at the Paris show of U2's Innocence + Experience Tour, performing "Bad" and "People Have the Power" with U2
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Smith performed at the American Museum of Tort Law convocation ceremony
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Smith wrote "Aqua Teen Dream" to commemorate the series finale of Aqua Teen Hunger Force
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Released album “Live in Berlin”.
Smith appeared with Nader, spoke and performed the songs "Wing" and "People Have the Power" during the American Museum of Tort Law convocation ceremony in Winsted, Connecticut
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Released album “Live in Italy”.
Released album “Depravity (New York May 28th 1975)”.
Released album “2006-10-15: CBGB's Final Night”.
Released album “Twelve / Banga”.
Released album “1976‐11‐26, early show: The Bottom Line, New York City, NY, USA”.
Released album “Live at Montreux 2005”.
Released album “Banga”.
Released album “Live at The Bottom Line NYC December 27, 1975”.
Smith recorded a cover of Io come persona by Italian singer-songwriter Giorgio Gaber
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Released album “Easter Rising (Live)”.
Released album “Outside Society”.
Awarded Polar Music Prize (2011).
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Released ep “Seeds in the Wind”.
Smith was working on a crime novel set in London
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Smith announced the first museum exhibition of her photography in the U
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Awarded National Book Award (2010).
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Awarded National Book Award for Nonfiction (2010).
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And was awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2011
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Hole singer Courtney Love said that she considered Smith's "Rock N Roll Nigger" the greatest rock song of all time, and credited Smith as a major influence
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Smith's book Just Kids was published, a memoir of her time in Manhattan during the 1970s and her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe
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After a week of smaller events and exhibitions in Florence, Smith played an open-air concert at Piazza Santa Croce, commemorating her performance in the same city 30 years earlier
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“s family had contacted her and that she wrote a short preface for the book that Murat was writing, which was released in March 2008. Ten days after the murder of Rachel Corrie in March 2003, Smith performed an anti-war concert at an Austin, Texas venue, and subsequently wrote”
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Contributed the introduction to Jessica Lange's book 50 Photographs
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In her Meltdown concert in Festival Hall, she paid homage to the Iranians taking part in post-election protests by saying "Where is My Vote
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Released album “iTunes Originals”.
Released album “Original Album Classics”.
Patti Smith: Dream of Life, a documentary about Smith by Steven Sebring, was released
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Stipe said that Smith's album Horses was one of the albums that inspired him to start a punk band
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Released album “Patti Smith x2: Horses / Easter”.
Awarded Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2007).
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Released album “Twelve”.
Released album “Covers The Rolling Stones”.
Was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
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Smith performed a 3½-hour tour de force show to close out at CBGB, which was an immensely influential New York City live music venue for much of the late 20th and early 21st centuries
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Released album “February 10, 1971”.
In which she performed Horses live in its entirety for the first time
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Awarded Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (2005).
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Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall released "Suddenly I See", a single, as a tribute of sorts to Smith
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Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture
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Released album “I miti musica: Patti Smith”.
Smith released Trampin', which included several songs about motherhood, partly in tribute to Smith's mother, who died two years earlier
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Shirley Manson of Garbage spoke of Smith's influence on her in Rolling Stone's issue "The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time", in which Smith was ranked 47th
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Sonic Youth released an album called Hidros 3 (to Patti Smith)
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Released album “At the Cirkus 2004”.
Released album “Trampin’”.
Released album “Land (1975–2002)”.
Smith released Land (1975–2002), a two-CD compilation that includes a cover of Prince's "When Doves Cry"
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Released album “Gung Ho”.
The Australian alternative rock band The Go-Betweens dedicated the song "When She Sang About Angels" on their album The Friends of Rachel Worth to Smith
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“It’s obviously the right thing to do to fight for civil rights, it’s not a matter of consideration or taste. Climate change, war, they really affect all people. So much of my efforts, so-called politically, have been toward the greater good. It’s something that sometimes hits us very specifically, like, the writer [Rooney], I thought that was a very brave move, because I have my own considerations. I haven’t performed in Israel since 1999.”
Released album “Ask The Angels”.
Released album “Peace and Noise”.
Released album “Early Gig ’75”.
Which included the single "1959" about China's invasion of Tibet, and Gung Ho in 2000, which included songs about Ho Chi Minh and Smith's late father
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Released album “Tell It Like It Is”.
Released album “Gone Again”.
Released album “The Patti Smith Masters (The Collective Works)”.
Released album “Divine Intervention”.
Released album “The Patti Smith Masters”.
Smith worked with her long-time band to record Gone Again, featuring "About a Boy", a tribute to Kurt Cobain, the former lead singer of Nirvana who died by suicide in 1994
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“I had devoted so much of my girlish daydreams to Arthur Rimbaud. Rimbaud was like my boyfriend.”
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Released album “Paths That Cross”.
Released album “Exodus”.
Features the lyrics, "And the sky was all violet / I want it again, but violent, more violent," alluding to lyrics from Smith's song "Kimberly"
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Smith began devoting time to what she terms "pure photography", a method of capturing still objects without using a flash
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Released album “Philadelphia Rock”.
Smith contributed "Memorial Tribute (Live)" to the AIDS-benefit album No Alternative
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Released album “Dream of Life”.
Released ep “In‐Store Sampler”.
“Mówi się, że dzieci nie potrafią odróżnić organizmów żywych od świata nieożywionego; ja wierzę, że potrafią. Dziecko umie tchnąć magiczne życie w lalkę albo blaszanego żołnierzyka. Artysta ożywia swoje prace tak samo, jak dziecko ożywia zabawki.”
“Paliłam wyłącznie we własnym towarzystwie - słuchałam przy tym Screaming Target i pisałam niewiarygodną prozę. Nigdy nie traktowałam trawki jako narkotyku do spotkań towarzyskich. Lubiłam zapalić, żeby popracować, pomyśleć, a w końcu improwizować.”
“We własnych oczach byliśmy Dziećmi Wolności, których misja polegała na utrwalaniu, strzeżeniu i krzewieniu rewolucyjnego ducha rock and rolla. Baliśmy się, że muzyce, która dała nam siłę, grozi śmierć z duchowego głodu. Baliśmy się, że zatraci poczucie celu, że trafi w tłuste łapska, że ugrzęźnie w bagnie widowiskowości, mamony i banalnych technicznych sztuczek.”
“Wywiązała się między nami ostra sprzeczka. Na końcu Tony zaśmiał się z niedowierzaniem: - Nie dajesz w żyłę i nie jesteś lesbijką. To co ty właściwie robisz?”
“Gdy otwarły się ciężkie szklane drzwi, jakby targnął nimi wiatr, i weszła znana postać w czarno-szkarłatnej pelerynie, pomyślałam, że lobby zmieniło się w magiczny portal. Salvador Dali. Rozejrzał się nerwowo, a potem, dostrzegając mojego kruka, błysnął uśmiechem. Położył mi na głowie elegancką kościstą dłoń i powiedział: - Ty też jesteś jak kruk, gotycki kruk.”
“Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg i William Burroughs byli moimi nauczycielami, a każdy przewinął się przez lobby hotelu Chelsea - każdy niczym mój nowy uniwersytet.”
Released ep “Because the Night”.
Gilda Radner portrayed a character called Candy Slice, based on Smith, on Saturday Night Live
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Her most widely known song, "Because the Night", co-written with Bruce Springsteen, reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number five on the UK Singles Chart
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Released album “You Light Up My Life”.
Was their most commercially successful record
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While touring in support of Radio Ethiopia, Smith accidentally danced off a high stage in Tampa, Florida, and fell 15 feet onto a concrete orchestra pit, breaking several cervical vertebrae
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Released album “Superbunny”.
Released album “Bicentenary Blues”.
Released album “Teenage Perversity & Ships in the Night”.
Released album “Horses”.
Smith teamed up again with musician and rock archivist Lenny Kaye, and later added Richard Sohl on piano
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Smith, accompanied by Lenny Kaye on electric guitar, opened for Gerard Malanga, which was her first public poetry performance
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Smith performed in the one-act play Cowboy Mouth, which she co-wrote with Sam Shepard
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Smith went to Paris with her sister, and started busking and doing performance art
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20-year-old Smith left Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) and moved to Manhattan, where she began working at Scribner's bookstore with friend and poet Janet Hamill
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Smith graduated from Deptford Township High School, and began working in a factory
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Born 1946-12-30.
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At Grant Hospital in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago, to Beverly Smith, a jazz singer turned waitress, and Grant Smith, a Honeywell machinist
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
It’s obviously the right thing to do to fight for civil rights, it’s not a matter of consideration or taste. Climate change, war, they really affect all people. So much of my efforts, so-called politically, have been toward the greater good. It’s something that sometimes hits us very specifically, like, the writer [Rooney], I thought that was a very brave move, because I have my own considerations. I haven’t performed in Israel since 1999.
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