Helen R Brown

Patti Smith grows old too gracefully

According to her memoir M Train, the high priestess of punk now lives a quiet life, watching ITV3 and feeding the cat

Patti Smith posed in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1976 (Photo by Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns/Getty Images) 
issue 14 November 2015

  • Patti Smith Collected Lyrics, 1970–2015

    Patti Smith

    Bloomsbury, pp. 320

  • M Train

    Patti Smith

    Bloomsbury, pp. 272

‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins/ but not mine’: the opening lines of Patti Smith’s 1975 debut album, Horses, find a young woman marking her territory with fierce conviction. Raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, she was (or was treated as) an invalid for much of her New Jersey childhood. The restrictions were physical and spiritual.

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