Transcript

Patti Smith on the One Desire That Lasts Forever

From The Ezra Klein Show · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 17 min · 11,540 words · 116 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Patti Smith on the One Desire That Lasts Forever", an episode of The Ezra Klein Show published November 18, 2025 (1 h 17 min, about 11,540 words). It mentions 137 people, works and ideas, including Patti Smith, Just Kids, Bread of Angels, New York City, New York, Horses.

What this episode is about

Patti Smith reflects on her artistic journey and the pursuit of meaningful expression in her life and work, as illustrated in her memoir *Just Kids*, which captures the vibrant New York art scene of the 60s and 70s. Her latest book, *Bread of Angels*, delves deeper into her personal experiences, revealing the emotional depth and texture of her world while she continues to honor her legacy through tours and writing.

Key takeaways

  • Patti Smith: A punk pioneer with a turtle's wisdom - who knew tortoises inspired such a shamanistic journey?
  • Just Kids captures 60s NYC art fever; readers feel what moments meant rather than mere descriptions.
  • Patti Smith's improvisation roots: Bridging poetry and punk, channeling empathy to fuel artistic fire.
  • Scarlet fever survivors unite - Patti and Burroughs credit infectious intensity as creative consciousness fuel.
  • From Chelsea Hotel chats to Substack essays, Smith's curiosity keeps her fiercely relevant and vibrant.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Patti Smith, Just Kids, Bread of Angels, Horses
  2. – 20:00: Pinocchio, Philadelphia, Gernika, Gernika
  3. – 30:00: The Old Testament, New York City, New York, Sylvia Plath, David the shepherd boy
  4. – 40:00: New York City, New York, Bob Dylan, East Village, West Village
  5. – 50:00: Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, The Bitter End
  6. – 1:00:00: Horses, Bob Dylan, Horses, Horses
  7. – 1:10:00: Bay of Angels, Rebel hump, Bread of Angels, Pinocchio
  8. – 1:17:06: Pinocchio, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Frankenstein

Notable quotes from "Patti Smith on the One Desire That Lasts Forever"

  • And man, did I love that book. One of the few I've read many times since. Just Kids is this memoir of Smith's early years in New York and her relationship with the artist Robert Malthorp.
    about Just Kids · at
  • Much more experiential. I loved this one, too. Smith also writes a Substack these days, and she's on tour right now, celebrating the 50th anniversary of her iconic album, Horses. [singing].
    about Patti Smith · at
  • Experience. I really came through performing through poetry, but I was a very fluid improviser. Whether it was CBGB's or a poetry reading, I would just go into a state where I could do long solos.
    about CBGB's · at
  • I just took him to the pond and we sat on the rock and I told him exactly what happened and told him I was talking to the tortoise but without words for a long time. And he said, Oh. And I.
    about Philadelphia · at
  • Pinocchio was very important to me because I knew I was a weward kid. I wasn't always doing what I was supposed to do. I wasn't evil, but I didn't always do what I was supposed to. And.
    about Pinocchio · at
  • He was like one of my greatest influences. And there he was in front of me. And two things. One, I thought, Oh, that's why it was so exciting because Bob Dylan was there. But I don't.
    about Bob Dylan · at
  • And I feel like both grateful because people are still interested in this work that was committed and again half a century ago but you know there it's a lot of joy and.
    about Horses · at
  • Redeems himself and then Mary Shelly writes Frankenstein truly a masterpiece. Two different takes on creating being as a almost a god figure in creating life. [snorts] And I would say read some poetry of Sylvia Pla. read 2666 because.
    about Frankenstein · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Patti Smith — Person · Main guest · 5 mentions · first at
    Primary interview subject; memoirist, musician and performer whose life, books, and career are the focus of the episode
  • Bob Dylan — Person · Referenced expert / influence · 8 mentions · first at
    Referenced as an important musical influence and a person Patty Smith encountered early in her career; story about him being at a club the night of an important performance
  • Robert Malthorp — Person · Referenced close relationship (memoir subject) · 2 mentions · first at
    Central figure in 'Just Kids' as Smith's partner and artistic counterpart; mentioned as part of the seriousness of art in that era.
    The few I've read many times since. Just Kids is this memoir of Smith's early years in New York and her relationship with the artist Robert Malthorp.
  • Andy Warhol — Person · Referenced artist / contemporary · 4 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as part of the New York art scene Patti Smith describes; she comments on his work and the social atmosphere around him
    This is the New York art scene of the 60s and the 70s. Smith is living in the Chelsea Hotel, bumping into Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsburg and Janice Joplain and Jimmyi Hendris and Andy Warhol. It's this moment of ferment that I wish I.
  • Allen Ginsburg — Person · Referenced contemporary / mentor figure · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as part of the 60s–70s NYC scene Patti Smith recounts having bumped into; referenced as Allen (sic) Ginsburg — likely Allen Ginsberg
    In a song getting within them and it's just something that I do. I used to speak with William Burroughs a lot about this.
  • Sylvia Plath — Person · Referenced recommended poet · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced indirectly when Patti Smith recommends reading Sylvia Plath's poetry among other poets as formative influences
    It's just that for me, true poetry, I think, is the hardest and the highest thing to write. There's a million poetry books and poet laurates and poetry prizes, but I'm talking…
  • Janis Joplin — Person · Referenced musician (era peer) · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as part of the shared musical canon and as a Chelsea Hotel contemporary, illustrating the density of iconic figures in Smith’s early NYC life.
    Didn't fit in anywhere. And so, I was always such a weirdo. But when in New York, nobody cared. I was more of a hick in New York than a weirdo because, my clothes were a little…
  • Janice Joplin — Person · Referenced contemporary / peer · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a musician present in the same era and social circles Patti Smith describes from the Chelsea Hotel and New York scene
    Everywhere. Andy Warhol ate in the same restaurants as we did. We all comingled more. I sometimes joke that, Janice Joplain was staying at the Chelsea the hotel when I lived there.
  • Roberto Bolaño — Person · Referenced author; reading recommendation target · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the author of '2666,' which Smith calls a major 21st-century masterpiece and recommends to listeners.
    Would say read some poetry of Sylvia Pla. read 2666 because I think it was our first 21st century masterpiece by Roberto Bologano.
  • Jimmy Hendris — Person · Referenced contemporary / peer (likely Jimi Hendrix mis-transcribed) · 3 mentions
    Mentioned in the list of musicians Patti Smith recalls encountering; likely refers to Jimi Hendrix — appears as a single, minor mention
    Elevator. You saw these people. They were there. you knew where their studios were. Jimmyi Hendricks's studio was across the street from where Lee Kraner and Jackson Pollock…
  • Karen Rose — Person · Referenced expert (music journalist/biographer) · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as a journalist who wrote a book about Smith; her phrasing (“shamanistic”) is used to probe how others interpret Smith’s performance presence.
    Just came up. when we were preparing for this episode, we talked to the music journalist Karen Rose, who's written a wonderful book about you, and she used a term shamanistic.…
  • Jimmy Hendrix — Person · Referenced musician (scene figure) · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as part of the era's creative density; Smith notes his studio location as a marker of art/music proximity in NYC.
    Elevator. You saw these people. They were there. you knew where their studios were. Jimmyi Hendricks's studio was across the street from where Lee Kraner and Jackson Pollock…
  • Alan Ginsburg — Person · Referenced poet (NYC scene figure) · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as part of the 60s–70s New York cultural milieu Smith moved through, reinforcing the Beat/poetry lineage around her early career.
    This is the New York art scene of the 60s and the 70s. Smith is living in the Chelsea Hotel, bumping into Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsburg and Janice Joplain and Jimmyi Hendris and Andy Warhol. It's this moment of ferment that I wish I.
  • Bruce Springsteen — Person · Referenced artist (attribution check) · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned only as someone the producers tried to verify as having used the term 'shamanistic' about Smith.
    Wonderful book about you, and she used a term shamanistic. We were trying to track down whether Bruce Springsteen had used the term shamanistic around you.
  • Janice Joplain — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    60s and the 70s. Smith is living in the Chelsea Hotel, bumping into Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsburg and Janice Joplain and Jimmyi Hendris and Andy Warhol. It's this moment of…
  • Olivier & Alice Picasso — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    To be able to feel that at 12, I who have now like read biographies of Picasso and, have tried, in probably the wrong way to deepen my appreciation of art over the years, still struggle with going to a museum and walking past.
  • Sylvia Pla — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    And poetry prizes, but I'm talking about something that's so exceptional that maybe a great poet Rambo or Sylvia Pla or Dylan Thomas only writes 10 of them, but if you get the…
  • William Burroughs — Person · 1 mention · first at
    It's just something that I do. I used to speak with William Burroughs a lot about this.
  • John Singer sergeants — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And it was just such an experience but it was more like appreciating beauty at first looking at the John Singer sergeants and medigleanis and but then I went down to this one hallway where there were Picassos.
  • medigleanis — Person · 1 mention · first at
    It was more like appreciating beauty at first looking at the John Singer sergeants and medigleanis and but then I went down to this one hallway where there were Picassos.
  • David the shepherd boy — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Things in it were supposed to accept as real and real people and then you become very enamored with David the shepherd boy and you love him and he does all these wonderful…
  • Dylan Thomas — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Something that's so exceptional that maybe a great poet Rambo or Sylvia Pla or Dylan Thomas only writes 10 of them, but if you get the greatest of poems, it can distill…
  • Neil Young — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Larry Rivers — Person · 1 mention · first at
    We still were in a certain way like minds. when I was working at Scribers, I waited on Larry Rivers. I waited on Robert Rashenberg. I delivered books to the building where Mark…
  • Robert Rashenberg — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Minds. when I was working at Scribers, I waited on Larry Rivers. I waited on Robert Rashenberg. I delivered books to the building where Mark Rothka lived and saw them on the…
  • Mark Rothka — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Waited on Robert Rashenberg. I delivered books to the building where Mark Rothka lived and saw them on the elevator. You saw these people. They were there. you knew where their…
  • Lee Kraner — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Were there. you knew where their studios were. Jimmyi Hendricks's studio was across the street from where Lee Kraner and Jackson Pollock painted. Art was everywhere. Andy…
  • Jackson Pollock — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Were. Jimmyi Hendricks's studio was across the street from where Lee Kraner and Jackson Pollock painted. Art was everywhere. Andy Warhol ate in the same restaurants as we did.…
  • Alex Kennedy — Person · 1 mention · first at
    I just had this other thought that might be far-fetched, but we were from the generation that had President Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy. when I was a kid, Eisenhower was president, and then you had the Kennedys. Well, you had President.
  • Holden Caulfield — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Sometimes the atmosphere felt very high school to me. I was more of a Holden Caulfield kind of kid. I really was. I used to think of myself as Holden Cawfield at the Chelsea. I…
  • JD Dy — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And it was really time for us to get a drummer and we finally got one. JD Dy, he was only with us for a couple of weeks and we got a job at the bitter end and it was our debut as a drummer. So it was going to be quite exciting.
  • Lenny Kay — Person · 1 mention · first at
    My pianist who I love too was the founding member with Lenny Kay of the band and all my friends Robert and Sam Shepard and oh so many people. And it all these people sometimes my brother who is the.
  • Sam Shepard — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Founding member with Lenny Kay of the band and all my friends Robert and Sam Shepard and oh so many people. And it all these people sometimes my brother who is the head of our crew and sometimes when we're doing these songs because they.
  • Jim Morrison — Person · 1 mention · first at
    You get, it's like Jim Morrison was right. You can't petition it. You can't say, Great mighty bay of angels, give me the words. It just I was just given. I was generously given a.
  • Roberto Bologano — Person · 1 mention · first at
    I think it was our first 21st century masterpiece by Roberto Bologano.
  • Jeff Gelb — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Produced by Annie Galvan. Facteicking by Michelle Harris. Our senior audio engineers Jeff Gelb with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon.…
  • Emma Kellbeck — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Show's production team also includes Marie Cassion, Roland Hu, Marina King, Jack McCordic, Kristen Lynn, Emma Kellbeck, and Yan Koval. Original music by Carol Sabo, and Pat McCusker.
  • Yan Koval — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Marie Cassion, Roland Hu, Marina King, Jack McCordic, Kristen Lynn, Emma Kellbeck, and Yan Koval. Original music by Carol Sabo, and Pat McCusker.
  • Carol Sabo — Person · 1 mention · first at
    King, Jack McCordic, Kristen Lynn, Emma Kellbeck, and Yan Koval. Original music by Carol Sabo, and Pat McCusker.
  • Anukica Robbins — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Director of New York Times pinning audio is Annie Rose Straw. Special thanks to Karen Rose and Anukica Robbins.

Books & papers

  • Just Kids — Book · Referenced work / earlier memoir · 6 mentions · first at
    Patti Smith's award-winning memoir about her early years in New York and relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe; mentioned as influential and widely read
  • Bread of Angels — Book · Referenced work / recent memoir · 2 mentions · first at
    Described as Patti Smith's latest book (during episode) and a more personal, experiential memoir spanning a wider range of her life; the host and guest discuss it at length
    Smith's latest book is Bread of Angels, which like Just Kids is a memoir, but spans a much wider range of her life, and it's much more personal in a way, much more experiential. I loved this.
  • Pinocchio — Book · Primary recommendation / formative book · 5 mentions · first at
    Cited by Patti Smith as an especially formative book she reread many times and as an aspirational standard for her writing
  • Frankenstein — Book · Primary recommendation / formative book · 2 mentions · first at
    Recommended by Patti Smith at episode end; discussed as a paired read with Pinocchio for themes about creators creating life
  • The Old Testament — Book · Referenced work · 3 mentions · first at
    Book mentioned by Patti Smith as disturbing in her childhood.
    The book that really was disturbing for me was the Old Testament because I started reading it very young and the things in it were supposed to accept as real and real people and then you become.
  • 2666 — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    A book recommended by Patty Smith, described as the first 21st century masterpiece.
    Figure in creating life. [snorts] And I would say read some poetry of Sylvia Pla. read 2666 because I think it was our first 21st century masterpiece by Roberto Bologano.
  • Bread for Angels — Book · Alternate title / potential mis-transcription · 1 mention · first at
    Appears in the entity list likely as a duplicate or mis-typed variant of 'Bread of Angels' referenced throughout the episode
    Wasn't going to get these questions from other people. I was going to have to figure out the answers myself. You tell a story in Bre of Angels about a family trip to the Museum…
  • New Testament — Book · 2 mentions · first at
    Well, my father studied everything. He read the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament. He read books on ufology.
  • Fox's Book of Martyrs — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Mother was distraught cuz she couldn't find it. It was my grandfather's book called Fox's Book of Martyrs. And it was a book with all stories of poor martyed saints. But I'm…
  • Mother Goose — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Saints. But I'm sure when my mother started teaching me to read, it was the normal Mother Goose or something. But I swiftly started reading books and Uncle Wiggly and the Bobsy…
  • Uncle Wiggly — Book · 1 mention · first at
    It was the normal Mother Goose or something. But I swiftly started reading books and Uncle Wiggly and the Bobsy Twins and Pinocchio and Alice and Wonderland and all the Elves and Fairy books. I've read them all.
  • Alice and Wonderland — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Something. But I swiftly started reading books and Uncle Wiggly and the Bobsy Twins and Pinocchio and Alice and Wonderland and all the Elves and Fairy books. I've read them all.
  • the Bobsy Twins — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Something. But I swiftly started reading books and Uncle Wiggly and the Bobsy Twins and Pinocchio and Alice and Wonderland and all the Elves and Fairy books. I've read them all.
  • Little Women — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Reading Little Women. Of course, Joe March was an early hero, a girl who wrote, a girl like me who was sort of a tomboy who didn't like the fuss and feathers of being a girl and wanted to.
  • Grimm's fairy tales — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Yes. like you, there was the German versions of Grimm's fairy tales that were very grim.
  • Irish fairy tales — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Side, but the fairy tale side for a minute. You write about this book of Irish fairy tales that belonged to somebody you had cared about when you were young and who passed…
  • Bible — Book · 1 mention
  • The Catcher in the Rye — Book · 1 mention

Companies & orgs

  • The Bitter End — Company · 3 mentions · first at
    So tell me about you gave this performance at the bitter end in the 70s. It's your first performance with a drummer. Can you tell me a bit about that night?
  • National Book Award — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Beauty of it, the reason I think it worked for so many people, won the National Book Award that year is it's one of those rare books that makes you feel what a moment must have been like.
  • Substack — Company · 1 mention · first at
    And it's much more personal in a way, much more experiential. I loved this one, too. Smith also writes a Substack these days, and she's on tour right now, celebrating the 50th anniversary of her iconic album, Horses.
  • CBGB's — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Performing through poetry, but I was a very fluid improviser. Whether it was CBGB's or a poetry reading, I would just go into a state where I could do long solos.
  • Bible school — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah. I was one and a half. I was or my mother found because I was a bit precocious, she got me in Bible school very quickly, but they couldn't answer the questions either. So…
  • Orthodox Hebrew school — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Very hard book for me to read. When I was I think it was in third and fourth grade I went to an Orthodox Hebrew school and we read a lot of the Old Testament and the instruction was to take it quite literally.
  • Scribers — Company · 1 mention · first at
    We still were in a certain way like minds. when I was working at Scribers, I waited on Larry Rivers. I waited on Robert Rashenberg. I delivered books to the building where Mark…

Products & tech

  • Horses — Product · media_product (album) / focal cultural artifact · 3 mentions · first at
    Patty Smith's iconic debut album; referenced repeatedly as being celebrated on tour for its 50th anniversary
    Much more experiential. I loved this one, too. Smith also writes a Substack these days, and she's on tour right now, celebrating the 50th anniversary of her iconic album, Horses. [singing].
  • Horses — Product · Business focus · 3 mentions · first at
    Iconic album by Patti Smith, mentioned as she is on tour celebrating its 50th anniversary.
  • Substack — Product · digital_product / platform mentioned · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as the medium where Patti Smith publishes a newsletter; incidental mention about her current writing activity
    And it's much more personal in a way, much more experiential. I loved this one, too. Smith also writes a Substack these days, and she's on tour right now, celebrating the 50th anniversary of her iconic album, Horses.
  • Horses — Product · 3 mentions · first at
    These days, and she's on tour right now, celebrating the 50th anniversary of her iconic album, Horses. [singing] She's someone who has stayed vibrant across many different eras of American.

Concepts & topics

  • Scarlet Fever — Concept · Referenced concept · 1 mention · first at
    Disease mentioned by Patti Smith in the context of childhood experiences.
    Something he advidly believed in. also because we both had scarlet fever and suffered fevers as children. He felt that people that suffered a lot of fevers and scarlet fever…
  • Gernika — Concept · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Painting by Picasso mentioned by Patti Smith as a work she deeply admires and has written poems about.
    Diminished. I was just in Madrid and for the 10th time went to see Garnica. Just went before a concert just so I could sit with it for a little while and see it again. And that's what I wanted. I wanted to be in that world.
  • Rebel hump — Concept · 4 mentions · first at
    So, you open the book Bread for Angels with these sentences you write. The pen scratches across the page. Rebel hump.
  • rock and roll — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    Books and all of that, but it was a rural area. There was no real culture except for the culture of rock and roll, R&B, rock and music that I shared with my classmates and…
  • Pan's Labyrinth — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Don't really understand that you're just who you are. But I think I when I saw Pan's Labyrinth, the girl in Pan's Labyrinth reminded me very much of myself because she freely…
  • Lindberg baby kidnapping — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Well, my mother was very reactive and she was traumatized when young over the Lindberg baby kidnapping. She was haunted by that and she was always afraid we'd be kidnapped. She…
  • ufology — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Well, my father studied everything. He read the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament. He read books on ufology.
  • harlequins — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    I don't know what happened. There were some harlequins, some pieces from the blue period, rose period, and then cubism more attuned to like the damsel period.
  • blue period — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    I don't know what happened. There were some harlequins, some pieces from the blue period, rose period, and then cubism more attuned to like the damsel period.
  • rose period — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    I don't know what happened. There were some harlequins, some pieces from the blue period, rose period, and then cubism more attuned to like the damsel period.
  • cubism — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Some harlequins, some pieces from the blue period, rose period, and then cubism more attuned to like the damsel period.
  • Garnica — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Diminished. I was just in Madrid and for the 10th time went to see Garnica. Just went before a concert just so I could sit with it for a little while and see it again. And that's what I wanted. I wanted to be in that world.
  • Neverland — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Peter Pan of course because I didn't want to grow up. And so that was hope of a new place, Neverland, where you didn't have to grow up.
  • poetry prizes — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    And the highest thing to write. There's a million poetry books and poet laurates and poetry prizes, but I'm talking about something that's so exceptional that maybe a great…
  • political activists — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Gritty. It felt safe. It was all this activity, energy, Washington Square Park and political activists and poets and people playing bongos and I don't know there it was action…
  • feminist movement — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Now so legendary? I think it's because it was a very pivotal time. for one thing, because of the feminist movement, because of the gay movement. I don't know what we would call…
  • gay movement — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    It was a very pivotal time. for one thing, because of the feminist movement, because of the gay movement. I don't know what we would call that now, but the fact that you could…
  • Sergeant Pepper — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    I mean whether it was you know the Sergeant Pepper Bob Dylan.
  • Civil Rights — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    We were all listening the same music, most of us, against the Vietnam War. All of course for civil rights, human rights, gay rights, women's rights, and we were young and…
  • gay rights — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Most of us, against the Vietnam War. All of course for civil rights, human rights, gay rights, women's rights, and we were young and conscious that this was rights that we…
  • women's rights — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Most of us, against the Vietnam War. All of course for civil rights, human rights, gay rights, women's rights, and we were young and conscious that this was rights that we…
  • fashion — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Kennedys. Well, you had President Kennedy, but his wife very connected with the arts, opera, ballet, fashion, and they sort of elevated the idea of culture in the American…
  • Gloria — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Because I do it basically chronologically and I have to open with Gloria Jesus for somebody's sins but not mine.
  • prince of Aquitane — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    The realization that yesterday's crumbling tower was not a fantasy. that like the prince of Aquitane, one is hurled and drawn like a human tarot card.
  • Tarot Cards — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Crumbling tower was not a fantasy. that like the prince of Aquitane, one is hurled and drawn like a human tarot card.
  • You cannot petition the Lord with prayer — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Really summon it. You can't demand it. it will come to you. It's like you cannot petition the Lord with prayer.
  • alchemy — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    That's that's beautiful. And it's the same thing. It's sort of alchemy. That sort of miracle area that unspoken thing that's our alchemical. I don't know how else to say it cuz in alchemy, you take all of these elements and.
  • 16th century — Concept · 1 mention
  • Andy Warhol's Last Supper series — Concept · 1 mention
  • muse — Concept · 1 mention
  • poet laureate — Concept · 1 mention
  • R&B — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

  • New York City, New York — Place · Setting · 5 mentions · first at
    Primary geographic setting for large parts of Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids and much of her early artistic life discussed in the episode
    And man, did I love that book. One of the few I've read many times since. Just Kids is this memoir of Smith's early years in New York and her relationship with the artist Robert Malthorp.
  • Philadelphia — Place · Setting · 3 mentions · first at
    Patty Smith's hometown and a significant location in her life and career.
  • Chelsea Hotel — Place · Setting / historical residence · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced as a place Patti Smith lived and where she encountered other artists and musicians in the era discussed
    This is the New York art scene of the 60s and the 70s. Smith is living in the Chelsea Hotel, bumping into Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsburg and Janice Joplain and Jimmyi Hendris and Andy Warhol. It's this moment of ferment that I wish I.
  • CBGB's — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    A famous music club where Patty Smith performed, significant in her early career.
  • The National Book Award — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at
    An award won by Patty Smith's book 'Just Kids', highlighting its significance.
    Beauty of it, the reason I think it worked for so many people, won the National Book Award that year is it's one of those rare books that makes you feel what a moment must have been like.
  • Gernika — Place · Referenced location · 1 mention · first at
    Painting by Picasso mentioned by Patti Smith.
    Diminished. I was just in Madrid and for the 10th time went to see Garnica. Just went before a concert just so I could sit with it for a little while and see it again. And that's what I wanted. I wanted to be in that world.
  • Gernika — Place · Referenced artwork location / inspiration · 1 mention · first at
    Reference to Picasso's Guernica (spelled 'Gernika' in transcript) — Patti Smith describes visiting it in Madrid and relating it to contemporary conflict imagery
    That's what I wanted to do. That's what I aspired. I felt it. And it's never diminished. I was just in Madrid and for the 10th time went to see Garnica. Just went before a…
  • Elizabeth Street Gardens — Place · Referenced local civic site / cause · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned by Patti Smith in context of her involvement in efforts to save the gardens in Manhattan — connects to her civic activism
    You and I are on different sides of the fence on certain aspects of that cuz you might know that I've been spending quite some time with my daughter and Joseph trying to save…
  • Lindberg baby kidnapping — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at
    A historical event that traumatized Patty Smith's mother, influencing her parenting.
    Well, my mother was very reactive and she was traumatized when young over the Lindberg baby kidnapping. She was haunted by that and she was always afraid we'd be kidnapped. She…
  • Vietnam War — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at
    A historical context for the New York art scene of the 60s and 70s, influencing the artists of the time.
    Now baby we were all listening the same music, most of us, against the Vietnam War. All of course for civil rights, human rights, gay rights, women's rights, and we were young and conscious that this was rights that we believed in and there.
  • Patty Smith's email — Place · Contact reference · 1 mention · first at
    Host gives the show's contact email (fragment in transcript) — used to direct audience correspondence
    Across many different eras of American art. And so I think she's someone to learn from. As always, my email as a client show@ny times.com.
  • Bay of Angels — Place · 3 mentions · first at
    I didn't. I started writing it in this fairly obscure hotel in Nice looking at the Bay of Angels.
  • East Village — Place · 2 mentions · first at
    There it was action and it wasn't like now. I mean down the east village and the west village it was mostly young people and creative people.
  • West Village — Place · 2 mentions · first at
    There it was action and it wasn't like now. I mean down the east village and the west village it was mostly young people and creative people.
  • Museum of Art in Philadelphia — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Figure out the answers myself. You tell a story in Bre of Angels about a family trip to the Museum of Art in Philadelphia and the way it evoked in you the realization that you…
  • Madrid — Place · 1 mention · first at
    That's what I wanted to do. That's what I aspired. I felt it. And it's never diminished. I was just in Madrid and for the 10th time went to see Garnica. Just went before a…
  • South Jersey — Place · 1 mention · first at
    I had lived in rural South Jersey.
  • Washington Square Park — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Really cheap to live there. It was gritty. It felt safe. It was all this activity, energy, Washington Square Park and political activists and poets and people playing bongos…
  • Greenwich Village — Place · 1 mention · first at
    And I know that we need housing. But that's not going to change the fact that in Greenwich Village, where it used to cost $110 or $150 for an apartment, the same apartment is…
  • Kyoto — Place · 1 mention
  • Nice — Place · 1 mention

Media & podcasts

  • Pan's Labyrinth — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Film mentioned by Patti Smith as reminding her of her childhood.
    When you're yourself as a child, you don't really understand that you're just who you are. But I think I when I saw Pan's Labyrinth, the girl in Pan's Labyrinth reminded me…

Full transcript with timestamps

It wasn't my goal in life to become a rich and famous rock star or, you know, become like an arrogant [ __ ] you know. I just like I wanted to do something important hopefully or something of worth.

So, back in 2010, I picked up this book that everyone seemed to be reading that year, Just Kids by Patty Smith. I had vaguely known who Patty Smith was. Musician and artist, sometimes called the godmother of punk.

But I didn't really know her. So I picked up the book without any real expectations. And man, did I love that book. One of the few I've read many times since. Just Kids is this memoir of Smith's early years in New York and her relationship with the artist Robert Malthorp. This is the New York art scene of the 60s and the 70s. Smith is living in the Chelsea Hotel, bumping into Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsburg and Janice Joplain and Jimmyi Hendris and Andy Warhol. It's this moment of ferment that I wish I could have seen or touched like just for a day for an hour. But just kids, the beauty of it, the reason I think it worked for so many people, won the National Book Award that year is it it's one of those rare books that makes you feel what a moment must have been like.

And feeling to me is the startling quality of Patty Smith's music and her writing. She makes you feel what she felt. She channels moments rather than describing them. And reading her makes me interested in what life must feel like to her. What is it like to go around in Patty Smith's mind? To be that open to experience and and energy and intuition. What is the texture of the world that she lives in? Smith's latest book is Bread of Angels, which like Just Kids is a memoir, but spans a much wider range of her life, and it's much more personal in a way, much more experiential. I loved this one, too. Smith also writes a Substack these days, and she's on tour right now, celebrating the 50th anniversary of her iconic album, Horses.

[singing] She's someone who has stayed vibrant across many different eras of American art. And so I think she's someone to learn from. As always, my email as a client show@ny times.com.

Patty Smith, welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. So, you seem like you were a wonderfully unusual child, and I want to begin by having you tell me about the time you spent a morning talking to a tortoise.

Well, I I suppose I was unusual. And when you're yourself as a child, you don't really understand that you're just who you are. But I think I I I when I saw Pan's Labyrinth, the girl in Pan's Labyrinth reminded me very much of myself because she freely spoke to um nature, whimsical characters, elves, fairies, and uh I was much like that. I was very much in contact with other worlds cuz I was completely open to them. And um once when I was about five or six years old, I was on the way to school and took a shortcut through the forest and there was a little pond and I sat there for a moment and a huge snapping turtle crawled out of the water and he was to me giant, the king of tortoises.

And um we looked at each other for a long time and just communed. And it wasn't unnatural to me because I communed with my siblings that way without words. And as a child it seemed totally natural to commune with an animal, a dog, um a massive snapping turtle, your brother and sister without words. But I must have like been there a long time. in tortoise uh uh consciousness because when I finally got to school, everyone was in an uproar. They thought I had been kidnapped because 3 or 4 hours had gone by. So, I can't tell you what we talked about.

It's always been a mystery, but I can say for absolute certainty that we did have quite a journey together. What did that feeling, be it with tortoises or siblings or others? What what does that feeling of communion feel like to you? And and are you still able to access it now?

Yes. I mean, it's different now because when I was young, it was completely innocent. It was just what we did. Now I'm more aware of it. And for me it's just a way of channeling you know a vast consciousness or another human being sometimes consciously sometimes unconsciously but it has a lot to do with even improvisation channeling on stage feeling the people getting a sense of the people getting a sense of a character that I'm building in a song getting within them and Um, it's just something that uh that I do. You know, I used to speak with William Burroughs a lot about this.

He saw it as very shamanistic, but I was always embarrassed when he would say that to me because I was only like 22, 23 years old and certainly didn't feel like I deserved being called shamanistic. But this kind of thing was something he advidly believed in. also because we both had scarlet fever and uh suffered fevers as children. He felt that people that suffered a lot of fevers and scarlet fever when young had a more open consciousness. But it's I think it's also just a form of empathy. Empathy. Imagination. I can't really break it down. It's just um it's a blessing that I have. I'm interested that that word shamanistic just came up. Uh when we were preparing for this episode, we talked to the music journalist Karen Rose, who's written a wonderful book about you, and she used a term shamanistic. We were trying to track down whether Bruce Springsteen had used the term shamanistic around you.

Why do you think other people perceive you or something you do as shamanistic? I think it's because I've, you know, my when I started performing publicly in the very early 70s, I wasn't a great singer. I didn't I'm not really a musician. I didn't have any real experience. I really came through performing through poetry, but I was a very fluid improviser. Whether it was CBGB's or a poetry reading, I would just go into a state where I could do long solos.

I always likened it to saxophone solos. You know, you think of Cold Train or someone doing a long 14minute solo. They go out as far as they can, talk to God if they can, and then return. And of course, I always returned. But I'm not very analytical, so I never thought about it. It was just what I did. And uh that's what people said. I mean, I find it flattering and sometimes, you know, um undeserved, but I don't know what else to call it.

That story about the tortoise leads to a story that I found very moving as a parent. People at the school are worried about you. You you come very late. You get in trouble. Your your parents are called. Your mom is worried. She asks you where you'd been. You say that you'd been nowhere. It was a big fight. And eventually your father asks you to show him you're nowhere. Like tell me about what you showed him and how he sort of knew to ask that. That's a beautiful move as a parent.

Well, my mother was very reactive and she was traumatized when young over the Lindberg baby kidnapping. She was haunted by that and she was always afraid we'd be kidnapped. She worried about things like that. And she worried about me because I was always wandering off, always going where I wasn't supposed to. And my father was more open to my ways. But um he understood my mother's concerns. So he took me for a walk. I just took him to the pond and we sat on the rock and I told him exactly what happened and told him I was talking to the tortoise but without words for a long time. And he said, "Oh." And I said, "Maybe he'll come out again." And we waited for a while, like 45 minutes, but the tortoise didn't come out. So we just sat there and we didn't even talk.

We just It was such a pretty place. He held my hand. My father was also quite the dreamer. And I think that my father didn't find that very strange. He was a very interesting man and he had a very flexible mind. And we just walked back and he said, "Um, all right. I'll just tell your mother that you were just daydreaming and lost track of time." And I said, "Will you tell her about, you know, the tortoise?" And he said, "No, let's keep that to ourselves. and we never spoke about it again.

You gave an interview some years ago where you said something about your father and his mind that that I found quite beautiful. You said that he believed that the mind was a country and you had to develop it. He had to build and build and build the mind. That was his whole philosophy, the development of the mind. What did he mean by that or what did you take him to mean by that?

Well, my father studied everything. He read the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament. He read books on ufology. He read Plato and Al Aristotle. He read uh Young and he was a factory worker. He didn't finish high school, but he was always searching and asking, you know, what is the meaning of life and asking different people and wanting to spar with if any religious organizations came to the house, he loved to talk to them, spar with them, see what their ideas were. You know, it's learning. It wasn't basically building like uh palaces and uh you know his country of the mind was after answers answers to very unanswerable questions and he was always probing why are we here who put us here you know what is our purpose you know I developed a love of study a love of personal evolution even if my goals were different. Um, that idea always stayed with me.

You write in your book that you were very inquisitive kid, which was, you know, inquisitive kids can be a lot for a busy parent to deal with, and that that you found your mom having written down some of the questions you ask and in just scrolled in the margins of something, were you asking, "What is the soul and what color is it?"

Yeah. I was one and a half. I was or my mother found um because I was a bit precocious, she got me in Bible school very quickly, but they couldn't answer the questions either. So even I was like 3 years old and understanding that I wasn't going to get these questions from other people. I was going to have to figure out the answers myself. You tell a story in Bre of Angels about a family trip to the Museum of Art in Philadelphia and the way it evoked in you the realization that you wanted to be an artist. What did you feel that day? What is the recognition of that calling feel like?

I mean, it's one of the great mysteries of my life. I mean, I was 12. I saw art and books, mostly religious art. And uh it was the first time I saw art in person and it was just such an experience but it was more like appreciating beauty at first looking at the John Singer sergeants and medigleanis and but then I went down to this one hallway where there were Picassos. I don't know what happened. There were some harlequins, some pieces from the blue period, rose period, and then cubism more attuned to like the damsel period.

Something about seeing these paintings, the cubis paintings, struck me so deeply, as if I was struck, really struck by lightning in in my heart or something. It was completely unexpected, like really love at first sight. Maybe it's because it's multi-dimensional or something. I don't know. But when I saw his work, that's what I wanted to do. That's what I aspired. I felt it. And it's never diminished. I mean, I was just in Madrid and for the 10th time went to see uh Garnica. Just went before a concert just so I could sit with it for a little while and see it again. And that's what I wanted. I wanted to be in that world.

I wanted to do that. I didn't even know what doing that was. I was only 12. But it suddenly meant more to me than anything except maybe my books.

What does it feel like now to see Gernika? Usually when I see it, I just feel grateful that he did it. You know, I'll look at it in different ways. I've written poems about him painting it. I've deconstructed it in my mind. When I saw it this time, it was more painful because I could liken it to all the images I've seen of uh the destruction of Palestine, all the pictures of Gaza, all the rubble, all the destruction, all the children dead. And so it was a lot more painful to look at it this time because it struck a rawer nerve. But every time I've seen it, I feel something. It's always meaningful.

What strikes me about some of these stories and and a reason I'm always fascinated to talk to artists about the feeling of being called towards art is that was pretty natural in you. I mean to be able to feel that at at 12, you know, I who have now like read biographies of Picasso and, you know, have tried, you know, in probably the wrong way to deepen my appreciation of art over the years, still struggle with going to a museum and walking past masterful works that so many others have felt so much about and not feeling anything.

Well, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I there's books that people love. There's movies that people love that I feel nothing for. I don't think that there's any rules and regulations that way. We're drawn to what we're drawn in life. I was drawn to books at 3 years old. I saw books, saw my parents reading them. That's what I wanted. I wanted to read. I begged my poor mother, who was a waitress, who never finished high school, to teach me to read. But my siblings weren't like that. My friends weren't like that. There's no requirement to have to stop in front of a Rebrandt and and feel deeply if you don't. It's just it doesn't speak to you. But there are other things that most likely speak to you that might not speak to me or speak to another person.

I wouldn't fault anyone for not um being moved by art or being moved by a certain piece of music. It's a very subjective thing.

What's your first memory of reading? Well, my first memory of a book was I was fascinated with this red book my mother had. It was had red silk binding and gold stamping and I was about three and I hid it under my pillow cuz I thought if I slept on it, it would come into my head what was in it. And my mother was distraught cuz she couldn't find it. It was my grandfather's book called Fox's Book of Martyrs. And it was a book with all stories of poor martyed saints. But uh you know, I'm sure when my mother started teaching me to read, it was the normal Mother Goose or something. But um I swiftly started reading books and uh Uncle Wiggly and the Bobsy Twins and Pinocchio and Alice and Wonderland and all the Elves and Fairy books. I mean, I've read them all.

Really reading through your your memories, you really get this beautiful biography of your life as a reader, too. And the the authors who have meant so much to you. When you think about some of the books that were formative to you or some of the authors who you keep coming back to, what are they or or who are they?

Pinocchio was very important to me because I knew I was a weward kid. I wasn't always doing what I was supposed to do. I wasn't evil, but I didn't always do what I was supposed to. And uh I could relate to his desire to explore. But it's also a story. It's a redemptive story. It gave me hope as a kid. He was a bad puppet, a bad son. But in the end, he saved his father, gave his puppet life, and was redeemed by becoming a real boy. So there's redemption and it gives one hope even at seven. And I love Peter Pan of course because I didn't want to grow up. And so that was hope of a new place, Neverland, where you didn't have to grow up.

And when I wanted to write, but really wasn't sure if I could ever write. reading Little Women. Of course, Joe March was an early hero, a girl who wrote, a girl like me who was sort of a tomboy who didn't like the fuss and feathers of being a girl and wanted to be a writer. So, I was very lucky to have many books to help me on my path. I remember as a kid getting a book that had the fables and stories I knew, but it was an older version of them and realizing with a a thrill delight how much darker and more menacing and more grotesque they often were. And now I found myself reading to my children. And when I read them today's books for their age group, they're very funny and they're, you know, toilet jokes. And and then when I try to go back and read them, the classics that I remember reading or being read, it feels somehow so culturally different, you know, the Greek mythology and and things that I was reading. And I

I have to go through this constant negotiation with myself of what am I going to tell them about, you know, which parts of this am I going to sanitize? It feels like we believe children capable of absorbing a more extreme version of life and death and heroism and heartbreak and terror a couple decades ago than we do today.

Yes. Um, like you, there was the German versions of Grimm's fairy tales that were very grim.

That is literally the book I'm talking about. Very grim, very dark, but I also accepted them as what they were, fairy tales. They weren't real. And I had a sense of like the imaginative world and our social world. And I think that kids really have the ability, at least when I was young, we knew that things weren't real. I mean, you look at cartoons back then, they wrap, you know, dynamite around their head and then they their head explodes, then they're fine in the next cartoon. It wasn't like we really thought that was happening. I think that fantasy maybe because we were always playing outdoors and we lived a different life but the realm of childhood was akin to imagination and fantasy.

The book that really was disturbing for me was the Old Testament because I started reading it very young and the things in it were supposed to accept as real and real people and then you become very enamored with David the shepherd boy and you love him and he does all these wonderful things and then he wants someone else's woman and sends the the woman's husband to the front lines to be killed. So, as a young kid, 10, 11 years old, I even asked my father, there's so many bad things in the Bible, people having 20 wives and their wife is too old to have a baby, so they have a baby with a younger person. And I was said, "Daddy, there's so much bad stuff. It disturbed me. It confused me." It was really when I had to face the fact that human beings, as my father would always quote Burns, man's inhumity to man is a very real thing. And for now, what I think is more frightening to kids than stories or what whatever books they're

reading is the news. The news is terrifying. What is the news telling us? what our leaders are saying is really um disturbing. I'm sorry that this was such a convoluted answer, but

Oh, no. I agree with you. I find the news more terrifying than anything I read.

Yeah. So, you know, how could I explain to a child the duplicity of um you know, even our present administration, the hypocrisy? There's so many dark things. And um good luck bless blessings upon you and your children.

Thank you very much. I agree with you by the way that the Old Testament was a very hard book for me to read. When I was uh I think it was in third and fourth grade I went to an Orthodox Hebrew school and we read a lot of the Old Testament and the instruction was to take it quite literally.

Yeah. and in being told to take it quite literally and then trying to match that up to the way I had been told to understand God and told to understand spirituality and seeing the yeah and morals and seeing how little mercy there often was in that that book.

It honestly put me off of religion and spirituality for quite some time and I was young but to match those those two things up was already too difficult then. It's interesting because we both suffered the same kind of, you know, questioning and it wasn't frivolous questioning either. It was wasn't rebellious. It was true thinking.

Deeply earnest. Yes. Deeply earnest is a good way to put it. Let me stay on on not the uh religious side, but the fairy tale side for a minute. You you write about this book of Irish fairy tales that belonged to somebody you had cared about when you were young and and who passed away. your sister returned it to you uh or found a version of it for you as an adult. And a passage of that book that you write about said, "All desires save one are fleeting, but that one lasts forever." That was the desire for wisdom. And when that character is asked what to do with that wisdom, he says, "I would make a poem."

I know. I just love that so much. Well, I read that and having read your memoirs, that almost felt like your whole path. Well, that passage, that little section of that book, um, I used to ask a very old Irish woman, the great-g grandandmother of a neighbor named Aggie. I would ask her to read me that over and over, which she did. She didn't mind at all. And I had forgotten it. I'd forgotten it because after five years old when she died, the book was disappeared and I never saw it again. And truthfully, I'm ashamed to say that I had totally forgotten the passage. And when my sister researched, found the book and sent it to me. When I read that page, I felt almost like I had been like hit in the stomach or something. It was very powerful. Like I reverberated right back to that child and remembered how it made me feel. Yet I didn't really know why. It's another one of these great mysteries. Why did that particular

passage strike me so much when I was like kindergarten age? But it did. And it probably, as you said, has something to do with it's one of the main stones on my path.

I think so many people would hear that and think, if you had all that wisdom, why of all things a poem? What can a poem contain? And my sense is that you do have a sense of of why a poem and what a poem can contain. So why a poem?

It's like the bread of life, a poem. I mean, I'm not I'm not an analyst. I can't really break these things down. It's just that for me, um, true poetry, I think, is the hardest and the highest thing to write. There's a million poetry books and poet laurates and poetry prizes, but I'm talking about something that's so exceptional that maybe a great poet Rambo or Sylvia Pla or Dylan Thomas only writes 10 of them, but if you get the greatest of poems, it can distill everything like a teardrop, like a drop of water that you know can give you if that drop of water and you're thirsty suddenly becomes, you know, a liter of water, then you're satisfied. And that's what a poem can do.

You go to New York City in the late60s. What did New York City feel like to you when you arrived?

Freedom. I mean, I had lived in rural South Jersey. It was very rural. In my area, there was no cafes, no galleries, no bookstores. I mean, you could walk to the library on a rainy day in South Jersey and see one person, you know, some cows or something or a pig that escaped the pig farm. I went to a very cool high school because it was extremely diverse and interesting and I learned a lot from other kids and we were listening to Col Train and Bob Dylan and you know, I read a million books and all of that, but it was a rural area. There was no real culture except for the culture of rock and roll, R&B, rock and music that I shared with my classmates and friends. But New York at the time in 1967, it was filled with young people. It was really cheap to live there. It was gritty. It felt safe. It was all this activity, energy, Washington Square Park and political activists and poets and people playing bongos and I don't know

there it was action and uh it wasn't like now. I mean down um the east village and the west village it was mostly young people and creative people. You didn't have any fancy stores or uh things like that, you know. It was a place where you could evolve and grow and where nobody cared. I didn't have the look of my time, you know, beehives and lots of makeup. I had like long straight hair. I was sort of a beatnick Job Bayz looking kid. I just didn't fit in anywhere. And so, you know, I was always such a weirdo. But when in New York, nobody cared. I was more of a hick in New York than a weirdo because, you know, my clothes were a little off. But, um, it was free. I could just walk around and be who I was.

And and I didn't have any money and I was often quite hungry till I got a job. But I was happy. I was happy because I I can't say it enough. I just felt free.

I like reading memoirs of artists in New York City. It's like a a genre I particularly love, but most of my work is in politics and and policy and and I particularly do a lot of work on housing. And when I read them, some part of me always thinks, "Oh, what you are seeing are the benefits here of cheap housing." That so often these books seem to me like a memoir of what is possible when you can afford an apartment in a New York in New York City.

No, but you're also seeing the benefits of less greed. It's not just cheap housing. And uh I mean we could get into a very like unhappy discussion because you and I are on different sides of the fence on certain aspects of that cuz you might know that I've been spending quite some time with my daughter and Joseph trying to save the Elizabeth Street Gardens. So I can't get into a discussion with you about that because we have especially the cavalier way in which um it's treated as if like we're you know bunch of frivolous uh something. It's a beautiful beautiful place for children and people. We need we need I've lived in New York since 1967.

I've seen all the developments in New York has been mostly corrupt. We have all this office space that's completely empty, whole empty buildings and we just keep building in them, building them. And I know that we need housing. But that's not going to change the fact that in Greenwich Village, where it used to cost $110 or $150 for an apartment, the same apartment is $7,000. It's not going to change all the loopholes and stuff that these landlords and people have done. It's not going to change the fact that places are filled with mold, but landlords don't have to fix it. All my friends had to live move out in New York who have lived there since the 60s because the rates and the rents. You have a place and your lease goes up and then they triple it. I mean, just simply building some new things for 200 people is not going to change things. What we have to change is what's going on with how much things are. And that's what I'm

concerned about. Not concerned about all right, let's get rid of these garden spaces that are, you know, taking up valuable space that we could develop. All right, some of that might be important, but it's way bigger issue than that.

Well, let's stay recognizing that we might we might see the the possibilities here differently. I think we're actually on the same side of thinking something has gone terribly wrong.

Yes. Terribly. But what was it like finding housing when you first came to New York City? I mean, you came without a place to stay. You came without a place to live. Like what were the places you lived in like?

Well, like one right before I recorded horse, I think it was 74. I needed an apartment. Wanted to go to the East Village cuz the West Village started getting a little expensive. So I walked down East 11th Street, not far from the church. I think more like Tor Avenue between Second and First. Yeah. There's some old guy sitting in front of a building. The super. You always knew the super. The supers were always there.

Mhm. Do you have an apartment? Yeah, I got one. It's on the sixth floor. Go look at it. You know, you have to walk up six floors. Has a tub and kitchen. There's cockroaches all over the place. But you could fix it up. Go back down. How much? 150. But I need two months. All right, I'll come back. You shake hands and you you know you got an apartment. That's what it was like. And it was a [ __ ] hole, but it was your [ __ ] hole and it was up to you to fix it up. And there was a lot of abandoned buildings or things and people squatted or else they they would pay cheap rent and they had cold water flats. They didn't have electricity and these artists slowly started making them better, making them nicer, making them livable and then eventually they get priced out. So this is what you know sadly what happens. But it was great then because, you know, you got the rats and the cockroaches and the mold or whatever,

but you know, if you were resourceful, you could work with that, but you could get a job as a waitress. You could get a job in a bookstore, pay your rent, and have at least enough to eat. And um, you know, I I don't I'm living in this world. I'm not fantasizing about living in my old world, but there were some aspects of it. I do mourn some of actually the innocence and the possibilities. And right now to live in New York and whether you have some little affordable housing here and there, it's not going to change the fact that you have to have a lot of money to live in New York. You have to.

I've read Just Kids. It's uh one of those books I've read repeatedly and and I know a lot of people for whom that's true. And one of the reasons I think is that a lot of us we sort of wish we had been there in that moment. It feels like a moment that was special. And you actually your books sort of evoke it. They they allow you to feel it. [snorts] But it was a scene. It wasn't just a you know there a lot of moments but but that one was a scene. And then you describe it as quote looking back the burgeoning scene was breathtaking art rats embracing then breaking apart a vast cultural history scurrying into the future with speedy and productive energy.

What to you made that moment that moment and we've talked here a little bit about New York at that moment but why was the artistic moment so generative and and now so legendary? I think it's because it was a very pivotal time. Um, for one thing, because of the feminist movement, because of the gay movement. I don't know what we would call that now, but the fact that you could come to New York if you had new ideas. You could come to New York if you were homosexual. You could come like if I like myself, I was the weirdo. It sort of accepted everyone. It was really like the Statue of Liberty was our girl because so many kids in America were disowned by their families for being homosexual, wanting to be a poet, wanting to be an artist. That wasn't an accepted profession.

You know, you could be disowned for wanting to be an artist or a poet, let alone having a a sexual persuasion that was against anything they believed in. And so the New York was filled with misfits, people that weren't accepted, including myself or Robert or Jackie Curtis. All there's so many I could like many of them dead but so many people so many gifted people so many tragic people at the same time and what had brought us together I think it started with music. We were all listening to the same music. I mean whether it was you know the Sergeant Pepper Bob Dylan.

I think to myself, I might not take it [singing] anymore. Neil Young, it's a loner.

Janice Joplin. Now baby we were all listening the same music, most of us, against the Vietnam War. All of course for civil rights, human rights, gay rights, women's rights, and we were young and conscious that this was rights that we believed in and there was a kinship. So, it was a very unique period. And I don't like painting things like it was the best era ever so that young people in future generations feel like they missed out cuz that's not fair. Being alive in present tense is the greatest thing you have.

One thing that strikes me about that time when I return to it, when I think about it, the way you talk about the music of it. Um, you mentioned Robert Robert Maple Thorp who is such a central figure in your life and such a central artist. It's a moment when art is taken very very seriously. I think even compared to other times in American history, the music of of Bob Dylan or or the Beatles, you know, the conceptual Andy Warhol of that era, there is something about the cultures relationship to art right then that feels distinctive. not just the art being produced, but the the seriousness with which it was received and lived out.

I I don't feel like I know why it's true, but it feels true. That's really interesting. Yeah, it's um Yeah, there's truth in that when I think about it. I guess it's because it was just one of those It's like Journey to the East. It was just one of those moments where a lot of people converged that even if we didn't always get along or there was pettiness or this or that, we still were in a certain way like minds. You know, when I was working at Scribers, I waited on Larry Rivers. I waited on Robert Rashenberg. You know, I delivered books to the building uh where Mark Rothka lived and saw them on the elevator. You saw these people. They were there. you knew where their studios were. Um, Jimmyi Hendricks's studio was across the street from where Lee Kraner and Jackson Pollock painted. Art was everywhere. You know, Andy Warhol ate in the same restaurants as we did. We all comingled more. I sometimes joke that,

you know, Janice Joplain was staying at the Chelsea the hotel when I lived there. We dressed similar only she had feather boas and we lived in the same hotel only hers she had a bigger room. She had a suite of rooms and I had the tiniest room. Other than that we were all similar. We dressed similar. We listened to the same music. We had the same references and art was like the jewel in our crown. I just had this other thought that might be far-fetched, but you know, we were from the generation that had President Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy. I mean, when I was a kid, Eisenhower was president, and then you had the Kennedys. Well, you had President Kennedy, but his wife very connected with the arts, opera, ballet, fashion, and they sort of elevated the idea of culture in the American consciousness and also within young people's that was for a brief time that was our world that was our president. Behind the storm of

daily conflict and crisis, the dramatic confrontations, the tum of political struggle, the poet, the artist, the musician continues the quiet work of centuries, building bridges of experience between peoples, reminding man of the universality of his feelings and desires and despairs, and reminding him that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide.

It did something. It did something. It was at least a subconscious influence. But I I also, like I said, I I sometimes in talking about all of this don't ever want to seem like uh the time that we're living in is like end time or something. New things are being done constantly. New books are being written. new films are being made and I always pin my faith on youth.

What was Andy Warhol like? Um, I didn't particularly like him so much when I was younger. Um, but I really appreciated him, especially when I was older. Like his Last Supper series I thought was brilliant. But that was a world that really didn't interest me. It was a it could be a very competitive and petty world where a lot of really interesting work came out of it. Just sometimes the atmosphere felt very high school to me. You know, I I was more of a Holden Caulfield kind of kid. I really was. I used to think of myself as Holden Cawfield at the Chelsea. I was just like a gangling St. Bernard jumping into the Chelsea Hotel and there was hierarchies of people. That's a whole other subject.

Well, you come in and and you come in, as you say, a sort of Holden Cfield figure and uh you're then known by others as the poet and and you become a very famous musician and you release records, but I've heard that you you'll describe yourself as a poet and as a performer, but but not so much as a musician. So, I I'm curious about your sense of your own identities in that period, which ones you adopt and which ones you don't. I never in my life consider myself a musician. I don't deserve to be called a musician. I don't think like a musician. I don't uh apply myself. I can play really good and really loud feedback.

I can write a song with a few chords. Because belongs to the night belongs to life. But I'm not a musician. Um, my kids are musicians. My husband was a great musician. I've been called so many names. When I was young, I was the queen of punk. Then I got too old. Then the grandmother of punk or the godmother of punk. They always have a name for you. The punk poet laurate. What of all these things mean? I always tell people, you want to call me something, call me a worker because that's what I do. I work every day and try to do the best work I can. I don't um say I'm not a musician out of modesty. I'm just not. I'm a performer and I think I'm a good performer and a strong performer, but not a musician.

What makes you a good performer? I have no fear. I just, you know, I'm being cavalier, but when I go on stage, I I feel very comfortable on stage and I stay in do my best to stay in contact with the people. They're not going to get perfection and uh who knows what they're going to get, but they always know that I'm aware that they're there every second. I don't play at people. I play for them or with them, but that's a natural thing. So tell me about you gave this performance at the bitter end in the 70s. It's your first performance with a drummer. Can you tell me a bit about that night?

Yeah. Well, I that night will always be uh you know imprinted on my mind. We we were four of us. We didn't have a drum, but we were playing in such a high energy way. We had been playing

CBGBs. SP on her. Here she comes down. Here she comes. And it was really time for us to get a drummer and we finally got one. Um JD Dy, he was only with us for a couple of weeks and we got a job at the bitter end and it was our debut as a drummer. So it was going to be quite exciting.

and um you know we were at the club and was ready and excited and going on stage. I mean we were gathering a following and um you know I could feel the support of the people that night there was something extra. There was an electricity in the air that I can still access. It was like nothing that I had felt before. And I thought, "Oh, it's probably cuz people are anticipating us performing with a drummer." And um it was a great night. I mean, it was like rockus. The people like were so affusive and so with us. And it was a club, but it was a small triumph. It was exciting and I was like got off the stage and I was filled with adrenaline and uh you know I I get backstage and I hear this voice say uh any poets back here and I was like I turned around and I went I hate poetry. It was Bob Dylan and I mean I love Bob Dylan. Loved him.

He was like one of my greatest influences. And there he was in front of me. And two things. One, I thought, "Oh, that's why it was so exciting because Bob Dylan was there." But um I don't know why I said that. It was like such a teenage I felt like a teenage boy, you know? It's like when you act mean to a girl cuz you like her or something. And uh he just laughed and we like circled around. And I always said we were circled around like two pitbulls, you know, circled around like sort of sizing each other up. But Bob Dylan never went to see anyone. So, um, it was quite a privilege, but I was like, you know, I was I was such an upstart. I couldn't even act grateful or anything. I was like, ah, you know, so what? You're here. So what? I think that he understood. He was somewhat like that himself, you know. After that, everything just like went at 78 speed because he really, for some reason, you

know, I felt him in our corner. So, that was quite a night. And it was only a few months later that we recorded horses. 1975 was one of the fastest moving years of my life, I think. And, uh, it's nice now to be celebrating it. um you know 50 years. It was that was half a century ago. Half a century ago that that night at the bitter end and then recording horses and then going out into the world and uh still here.

What has it been like to be out playing that album again? Um, you know, I'm I'm a person that keeps move. My favorite thing is the thing I haven't written the next thing. But I understand what my task is when we perform it. The record has a lot of meaning to a lot of people and we do our best to give it to them every night, not by wrote, but like all over again. And it's challenging too because I do it basically chronologically and I have to open with Gloria

Jesus for somebody's sins but not mine. So you have to step on the stage and start with Gloria. And um I feel like both grateful because people are still interested in this work that was committed and again half a century ago but you know there it's a lot of joy and even sometimes on certain nights it's Sorry. I mean, so many people are gone. My pianist who I love too was the founding member with Lenny Kay of the band and all my friends Robert and Sam Shepard and oh so many people. And it all these people sometimes my brother who is the head of our crew and sometimes when we're doing these songs because they were all there then they they come back you know like with such force and uh sorry [clears throat] but despite that I feel also the the joy of celebration and happy to be here happy to be physically able to do it to feel my voice is strong and that I and give the people, you know, each night as

as authentically as I can. Give them the experience of the record as a new experience every night. I want everyone who comes into the night wanting a special night, leaving feeling that it was a special night and not just another night on the road. So that's where we did Europe and um pretty soon we'll be starting in Seattle and ending in Philadelphia where I got the bus to come to New York and where all these things unfolded. So it's sort of fitting it should end in Philadelphia.

That's beautiful. [bell] So, you become big as a a touring performer. I'll use the term. You have these big records. You're you're touring the world, you have stadiums, and this gets us to out of sort of the Just Kids book and and into your newer book, but you decide to leave that behind to move to Michigan with your your partner and and and raise a family. That's a a quite rare decision to walk away from that kind of fame at that moment. And and you have this line that I've been wondering about. You say that after a time, if not prudent, one reaches a point of being unrecognizable to oneself.

What about you or about your life had become unrecognizable to you? Well, I I was getting quite popular in Europe. You know, you play in front of 40,000 people and you get off the stage and you're like wired up and it was exciting. I loved rock and roll. I liked being a rock and roll star for a while, but it wasn't what I aspired to. I wasn't evolving as an artist. I wasn't writing anymore. I wasn't evolving as a human being. I'm not criticizing anything. I'm just simply saying this had to do with myself. It wasn't my goal in life to become a rich and famous rock star or, you know, become like an arrogant [ __ ] you know? I just like I wanted to do something important hopefully or something of worth and I felt like I had to really, you know, reassess who I was, what I wanted to do. I left public life behind so I could really get a sense of who I was, what I wanted, and to evolve as a human being and to be with the person I

loved. And it was a very difficult decision, very difficult, even painful. But I've never regretted it because in that next 16 years I did evolve which is also painful because evolving you have to shed a lot of things and you have to reassess you know who you are what you have done where you've been careless how you can be better and get a more empathetic sense of the world the people around you. So, it was a long learning process.

So, you open the book Bread for Angels with these sentences you write. The pen scratches across the page. Rebel hump. Rebel hump. Rebel hump. What do these words mean? asks the pen. I don't know, replies the wrist. Throughout the book, you keep coming back to those words. Rebel hump. And it's clear from the way you do it and the way you write that that you don't know yet what they mean, but they feel like something to you. Feel like something so strong that they end up being the refrain of this entire

work of art. So when those words came to the wrist, what did they feel like? How did you know there was so much life in them?

I didn't. I started writing it in this fairly obscure hotel in Nice looking at the Bay of Angels. I hadn't written in a long time. I was distraught because I was having a period where I just wasn't able to write and all of the sudden I started writing and they were the first that's what I wrote. So I didn't question it. I sensed that it was something. I just knew that it had worth. And uh as I wrote the book, it kept revealing to me aspects of what it was.

There's a passage from that book I'd love you to read. It starts, "We waged the fever of disappointment."

We waged the fever of disappointment. The realization that yesterday's crumbling tower was not a fantasy. that like the prince of Aquitane, one is hurled and drawn like a human tarot card. How can we leap back up, get back on our feet, grab a cart, and start gathering the debris, both physical and emotional, crush it into small stones, then pulverize them, and as the dust settles, dance upon it. How do we do that? by returning to our child's self, weathering our obstacles in good faith. For children operate in the perpetual present, they go on, rebuild their castles, lay down their casts and crutches, and walk again.

So, I love that that crush it into small stones, pulverize them, and and dance upon the dust. And it makes me think of something you did in your own life where you give up the life of a rock star. For a lot of people who do work that happens in front of an audience, whether a writer, musician, or performer, podcaster, it's very easy as you become more successful to measure how good the work is by how big the audience is.

Oh, I never think like that. How tell me about not because I'm sure you know many people who do and I'm sure there was seduction in that for everybody, right? I mean, that's some kind of measurement the world is giving you back. How did you stay connected to the voice inside of you about whether the work was great as opposed to the voices outside telling you?

No, I I'm really that's that's not hard for me because I'm my roughest critic really. And I've never like uh measured my worth by performing because it's a natural comes natural. It's my job to do a good job and you know connect with the people. I don't measure myself by the amount of agilation nor nor uh discord or hatred or anything. I don't let those things affect me. I don't uh measure how good my work is by what a critic says. I just do my job, you know, and I I perform for the people. I just want to do something of worth. I want to write a book as good as Pinocchio. I want to write one book where I can look at it and go, "Uh, this deserves the trees that were sacrificed for it."

Do you feel that way about any of the books you've written? I think that in all my books there's some really good things. I can't say I wrote the perfect book. I'm still trying.

Oh, I think it would be horrible to know you to know internally that you have done the best work you can do. That would be a kind of death. Yeah, would be you're right. So, let's say no, I haven't I haven't made it yet. I'm still trying.

Uh, you you write about your life in Michigan. You write, "Our life was obscure, perhaps not so interesting to some, but for us it was a whole life, sometimes challenging. Yet, I could feel my own evolution in slow but real time. It was painful as I was scrubbing centuries of skin, ash, debris from an unearthed vessel coming at last into its own. Rebel hump. rebel hump right there in that passage. What are those rebel humps?

Well, I think that's more of a cry for like where are you? You know, because the rebel hump, it's many things. Some of the things that I found troublesome about myself were part of the rebel hump. Sometimes when I had a small victory, the rebel hump glows or shimmers. some aspects of the rebel hump you want to shed but the essence of it which for me is probably one's deepest creative source one's imagination you know and sometimes we feel abandoned you know even in the New Testament you know the of Jesus feeling abandoned by his father we all feel abandoned by our muse many many different ways and it's a very painful thing even if you know because you have great faith you aren't abandoned but the feeling that you feel abandoned is painful and it's a hump that you have to get over.

What is that work like for you? If somebody's listening to this and they want to be a writer, what is the work of becoming better as a writer? Well, I always tell people it's like a a muscle that you have to exercise every day. I just write every day. You know, when you're young, you think, "Oh, you're going to smoke some pot and write a poem." It's not like that. I learned in the 80s when I left public life. I wrote every single day. I struggled. I'd write the same paragraph 10 times cuz I wrote everything by hand.

But I got to the point where I could not not write. That's when you know I think you're a writer. When you can't not write, I could imagine life not performing, you know, not singing, not drawing, not doing many, many things in life but not writing. I could not imagine not writing.

I always think there are two sides to writing. We always focus on what gets written, right? what comes out of the person but there's also what comes into the person uh you have a lovely quote where you say that is something I can do sit quietly go elsewhere and not return empty-handed how writer do you not return empty-handed how do you create what to write with

well because I study a lot and I research a lot and think a lot you know I'll I'll want to write a a mystery story about Kyoto in the 17th century so I'll do a lot of studying and then maybe months later I have all of the material in order to write some type of fable or something because I've consciously studied. But other things like in this book in Bread of Angels when I was sitting on that at that in that hotel on the little balcony at the Bay of Angels I had nothing in mind. I just like somehow was so demoralized and so tired and I was just looking out at the bay and a sort of circular and I was receptive and I was given I was given the words to start the book and then when I was struggling to finish the book I finished a tour in Paris and I had several days off I just decided to go there again. And I went there again, all the burdens and all the beauty sort of like, you know, floating in that

water and I just wrote it out and um and I finished the book. But this was one of those rare moments where I began and ended something in the same place and it was just for me uh you know it just even thinking about it makes me feel very privileged. Those things can't be planned nor can they be pushed. So the way you said it was very nice. How does it come to you? Some things come to you, other things you labor for, you study for. But the this other magical realm, you can't really summon it. You can't demand it. You know, it will come to you. It's like you cannot petition the Lord with prayer.

You get, you know, it's like Jim Morrison was right. You can't petition it. You can't say, "Great mighty bay of angels, give me the words." It just I was just given. I was generously given a gift.

There is a a mystery to the to the process. I said a second ago that I always think there are two pieces to it. The what comes in and what goes out. And that that's actually not entirely true because there's this thing that happens in between those two. But some kind of processing of it all has to happen. Yes.

In the middle. And I don't understand that process in myself. Something happens and then there is what to work with. But it's not exactly what came in. Right. I'm not a camera. That's the part that I I find the strangest. Uh I I've become much more respectful of it over the years, but I still would not say I understand it.

That's that's beautiful. And it's the same thing. It's sort of alchemy. That sort of miracle area that that unspoken thing that's our alchemical. I don't know how else to say it cuz in alchemy, you take all of these elements and produce something else. It could be gold, but it could also be some wisdom or some uh enlightenment or just understanding of u your own material. But that that realm, you know, that's a precious realm and you've articulated it perfectly. But it also has to be nourished, you know, and that's, you know, years of what you do, years of what I've done. We we have to um you develop certain disciplines and those disciplines come to hand you know that's um yeah these it's all the the magic in creation. My mother my mother could transform a bag of potatoes when we're you know my father was on strike and there was no other no food and just a big bag of potatoes. My mother would

look at that bag of potatoes and think about it in tears cuz that's all she had to give us. And by the end of the evening, she had created like, you know, a mystical mountain of the best French fries ever, the best potato pancakes ever, you know, and put it all on a newspaper on the floor and let us watch Frankenstein. And then you you weren't conscious of at all of uh the fact that they were struggling and that we were sort of hungry or you know the the cupboards were bare. All we knew was the magic that she had created for us.

I both love that story as a parent who needs to do a better job of of finding that magic for my children sometimes. But one thing that I hear in that is there has to be space to hear the voices. When you said she would get quiet and look at the batic of potatoes, right? Everybody there this chaos all around

like a cigarette and tears. Yeah. or or [clears throat] you know, you talk in in in your book about moving to Michigan and being away from the noise of the audience, away from the noise of fame, away from the I I I actually do think this is very important when you're talking about nourishing that internal voice. I often think of it as listening to it and it gets drowned out, right? You can both become a more sensitive listener or a less sensitive listener. But also, even if you are a sensitive listener, if you're not listening, right, if you're listening to everything around you and outside of you, it's very very hard to hear. So, what do you think? What are the conditions for you in in which it's easier for you to listen?

You know, at this time in my life, I mean, I'm going to be 79. I've been through all kinds of things and I don't really require anything. I can be in a noisy cafe or in the back of a taxi cab or, you know, sitting on a park bench. I don't I just have a lot of faith now. I know what I want out of the this next stretch of life. I know what I want to do and I am just grateful for anything that I can do. I know what I want and um and I know how I want to spend my the lion share of my time. We have to despite everything that's happening in the world and everything around us and any kind of frustration or helplessness we feel or betrayal we feel. We have to remember it's also all right to feel the joy of being alive and feel the joy of your own possibilities even even in the face of the suffering of so many people around us. I have to hold on to the fact that I have a life and I have duties that I have to

perform. you know, I have family to take care of, but I have also the same calling as I did when I was young to nourish and to do the work that I believe I was given the possibility to do. And um I'm not going to let anything shake that faith no matter how what kind of rubble or debris of our time I have to walk through. I believe in my rebel hump. So, I'm not going to uh let anyone um destroy it and uh I'm just going to keep doing my work.

Before I ask for your book recommendations, which is how we always end the show, I want to go back to the beginning to the questions you asked your mom when you were little and you realized you had to figure out the answers yourself. Now, 3quarters of a century later, what is a soul and what color is it? I believe it's the color of water. That's what I think. I think the soul is the color of water. And um you know what is the soul? It's not important to me to know it's many things. But I believe in it. I believe in the soul. I believe it's an energy that I like to believe we'll keep traveling. Even you know when breath is gone. I'm hoping to keep traveling. I'm hoping to see Fred somewhere. I'm hoping, you know, I don't have any system. My system has no system at all. When I think about the first moment I saw Fred and how I knew he was the person, I can still access that. I can still access what it felt like to

look at Picasso at 12 and uh still access how I felt hearing Bob Dylan for the first time. they remain within me and um I guess it's I can still access joy.

And then always our final question, what are three books you'd recommend to the audience?

Oh my gosh. Um well, my head is swirling so much with a million books, but just for like little continuity, I would say read Pinocchio and Frankenstein. There's two creators who have created life. Japetto creates the naughty puppet who redeems himself and then Mary Shelly writes Frankenstein truly a masterpiece. Two different takes on creating being as a almost a god figure in creating life. [snorts] And I would say read some poetry of Sylvia Pla. read um 2666 because I think it was our first 21st century masterpiece

by Roberto Bologano. Yeah, I think it's just brilliant and but I love so many books. It's terrible question to ask me. But Pinocchio is my go-to book. I've read it a 100 times. That was always my dream. If I could write a book as good as Pinocchio, then I could say, "Okay, I did my job." So, I'm still working on it.

Patty Smith, thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. This episode of this clunch show is produced by Annie Galvan. Facteicking by Michelle Harris. Our senior audio engineers Jeff Gelb with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show's production team also includes Marie Cassion, Roland Hu, Marina King, Jack McCordic, Kristen Lynn, Emma Kellbeck, and Yan Koval. Original music by Carol Sabo, and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Christina Simalooki and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times pinning audio is Annie Rose Straw. Special thanks to Karen Rose and Anukica Robbins.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Patti Smith on the One Desire That Lasts Forever"?

Ezra Klein (Guest), Patti Smith (Guest), Karen Rose (Guest).

What is "Patti Smith on the One Desire That Lasts Forever" about?

Patti Smith reflects on her artistic journey and the pursuit of meaningful expression in her life and work, as illustrated in her memoir *Just Kids*, which captures the vibrant New York art scene of the 60s and 70s. Her latest book, *Bread of Angels*, delves deeper into her personal experiences, revealing the emotional depth and texture of her world while she continues to honor her legacy…

What is mentioned in this The Ezra Klein Show episode?

137 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Patti Smith, Just Kids, Bread of Angels, New York City, New York, Horses, Bob Dylan. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Patti Smith on the One Desire That Lasts Forever"?

The episode runs 1 h 17 min; the transcript is about 11,540 words in 116 timestamped sections.

More from The Ezra Klein Show

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 10, 2026.