Listen and subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Google | Wherever you listen
Register Read our daily newsletter to get the best of The New Yorker news delivered to your inbox.
Patti Smith's debut album, Horses, was released fifty years ago, on November 10, 1975, catapulting her to stardom almost overnight. An anniversary reissue was released this year and received rave reviews. However, becoming a rock star was never Smith's intention: she was a published poet before the release of Horses, and also wrote a play with Sam Shepard. Music was an afterthought, she said, a way to make her poetry readings popular. “I didn't want to be boring,” she tells David Remnick. In recent years, perhaps more people finally know Smith as a writer rather than a musician. Her memoirs”Just kids“, about her friendship with the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, won a National Book Award.”M Train” reflected on her abandonment of music while she was raising a family. In her latest memoir, “Bread of Angels“Smith writes candidly about the loss of her husband, brother and close friends; she also shares startling revelations about her family and past. It's a book that was challenging for her and took her years to write. “I write a lot – fiction, fairy tales, all kinds of things that don't even get published – in a light-hearted way,” she says. “Writing memoir, involving other people, you really have to be smart, examine yourself and make sure they present the right picture.”
New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour appear every Tuesday and Friday. Follow the show anywhere you will receive your podcasts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production between WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
