democracynow.org
Stories:
Legendary Patti Smith on Her New Memoir M Train & National Book Award Winner Just Kids
In a Democracy Now! special, the legendary poet, singer, activist Patti Smith joins us for the hour. Her new memoir "M Train" has just been published. In 2010, her best-selling memoir, "Just Kids," won a National Book Award. "Just Kids" examined her relationship with the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who died in 1989. The new memoir focuses in part on Smith’s late husband, Fred "Sonic" Smith, who died five years later. Patti Smith is also celebrating the 40th anniversary of "Horses," her landmark debut album, which has been hailed as one of the top 100 albums of all time by Rolling Stone.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: In a Democracy Now! special, we spend the hour with the legendary poet, singer, author and activist Patti Smith. She has just published a new memoir titled M Train. It’s a follow-up to her best-selling memoir, Just Kids, which won a National Book Award in 2010. Patti Smith is also celebrating the 40th anniversary of Horses, her landmark debut album, which has been hailed as one of the top 100 albums of all time by Rolling Stone. The album was widely praised for its mix of poetry and rock 'n' roll. In 1977, she had her first and only top 20 hit with "Because the Night," a song she co-wrote with Bruce Springsteen.
PATTI SMITH: [singing] Take me now baby here as I am
Pull me close try and understand
Desire and hunger is the fire I breathe
Love is a banquet on which we feed
Come on now try and understand
AMY GOODMAN: Patti Smith’s music has inspired countless bands and helped earn her the title of the queen of punk. Her song, "People Have the Power," has become an anthem at protests across the globe. Patti Smith has also been a longtime activist, performing regularly at antiwar rallies and political benefits. In December, she’ll perform at the Pathway to Paris concert, which will coincide with the U.N. climate change conference. Pathway to Paris was co-founded by her daughter, Jesse Paris Smith.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to our interview with Patti Smith.
AMY GOODMAN: Patti Smith, it’s great to have you back in the studios of Democracy Now! You were here to inaugurate the studios a few years ago.
PATTI SMITH: Oh, I’m so happy to be back, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you won the National Book Award for Just Kids, and we’ll get to that. But we want to start with the new book, M Train.
PATTI SMITH: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, a lot of people in New York ride the M train, but that’s not what you’re talking about with M Train.
PATTI SMITH: Well, not really. Mine is the M train that I perpetually ride. It’s more for mental train, mind train. It’s—we all have it, you know, our continual train of thought.
AMY GOODMAN: People think of you as a musician. When you write, which you actually have to do for lyrics, as well, but when you write, do you sit down to write? What—how do you compose a book like Just Kids or M Train?
PATTI SMITH: Well, I’m always writing. And, I mean, I always counsel people when they call me a musician, I really do not have the skills of a musician. I really don’t think like a musician, though I love music and I perform and sing. I can’t really play anything, but the music that I do have within me goes directly through the word. And when I’m writing lyrics, I’m writing in regard to and respect to the composers of the music, sometimes myself but usually someone like Lenny Kaye or Tony Shanahan or my daughter. So I’m really infusing my words with their music, into their music. But when I’m writing a book, I don’t have any responsibility to anyone. I’m solitary. I’m writing on my own. I write by hand. And I write every day. I mean, it’s part of my daily discipline. But I think that my love of music and my love of poetry somehow finds its rhythms in my prose—hopefully, I think.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And it’s very striking about M Train, you say at the opening of the book that you were actually writing about nothing. And it’s also, in terms of its narrative, very different from Just Kids. So could you talk about the experience of writing both and what you intended with one and the other?
PATTI SMITH: Well, when I say nothing, it was really because I had no agenda, no plot, no outline. I had no idea where I was going. It was really literally I got on the train, I didn’t have a ticket, I didn’t have a destination, I just kept going. With Just Kids, I had tremendous amount of responsibility and a very classic agenda. Robert Mapplethorpe asked me to write our story the day before he died. I had never written a book of nonfiction, and so it took me almost two decades to write that book. That was thinking, gathering my diaries, material, going through a period of mourning and finding my voice, and the whole time feeling very responsible to Robert, to the people in the book, I would say most of them who are dead, and to New York City, which has gone through vast amount of changes since the '60s and ’70s. So, my responsibility was profound, chronologically, to make certain that people were represented properly. Even people that I didn't like, I had to find a way to treat them respectfully. And so, it was—
AMY GOODMAN: For the uninitiated, can you explain who Robert Mapplethorpe is, was—
PATTI SMITH: Yes, Robert—yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —and also your relationship with him?
PATTI SMITH: Well, Robert Mapplethorpe, I met in 1967. He was a student at Pratt, though even as a student a fully formed artist. We went through many things in our life together. He became my loved one, then my best friend. And Robert became very famous posthumously for his—some of his more difficult subject matter as a photographer, especially his S&M photography. But all of the work that Robert did, especially the work, one could say, when he was treating difficult subject matter, was done to elevate his subject to the realm of art. So Robert was really the artist of my life. And it’s funny, because I still consider him with me. It’s very hard for me still to talk about Robert in past tense. But we were so close, and at the end of his life he did want to be remembered. He was on the cusp of notoriety. And he knew that—he trusted me, and he knew that I would represent him well.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: You mentioned that it took two decades for you to write Just Kids and that you went through a period of mourning, and a number of people have pointed out that your work seems to be haunted by loss and by mourning. Could you talk about the relationship between writing, your artistic creation, and loss?
PATTI SMITH: Well, I don’t feel that my work is haunted. I don’t feel haunted. I feel that I walk with the people that I’ve lost, and I would be sad not to have them with me. I would rather feel the sorrow of—that sometimes I have of not having my husband or my brother or Robert or other friends than not feeling them at all. But I found that writing, it’s almost like you make these people flesh again. You bring them back in a way that other people can know them and know them as a human being. I mean, you know, writing Just Kids, I didn’t write it to be for a cathartic—is that right word?—experience for me. I really wrote it because Robert asked me to. But I also wrote it so that people would know Robert as a human being and not merely a young man who took notorious pictures, who died of AIDS. Nothing wrong with that description, but he—there was a lot of backstory, a lot of the story of how—what he sacrificed to be an artist, you know. And I wanted people to know him.
AMY GOODMAN: What did he sacrifice?
PATTI SMITH: Well, I think all artists sacrifice a certain amount of just daily life unfettered. I can’t imagine what it would be like not to spend a large portion of my day writing, transforming. I can never relax. I think that’s what artists sacrifice in a certain way. I go to the opera, and I’m rewriting the opera. You know, I’m listening to a beautiful passage of Schubert, and I’m writing lyrics to it in my head. Sometimes I wish I could just, you know, be just a person who could one-to-one appreciate things as they are, but always the artist is seeking to transform and to create new ways of looking at something.
AMY GOODMAN: Patti Smith for the hour, talking about her new book, M Train; also Just Kids, for which she won the National Book Award, about her relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe; her evaluation of the Obama administration; climate change; and much more. Stay with us.
PATTI SMITH: [singing] Ours is just another skin
That simply slips away
You can rise above it
It will shed easily
It all will come out fine
I’ve learned it line by line
One common wire
One silver thread
All that you desire
Rolls on ahead
Like a ship in a bottle
Held up to the sun
Sails ain’t going nowhere
You can count every one
Until it crashes unto the earth
And simply slips away
You can hide in the open
Or just disappear
It all will come out fine
I’ve learned it line by line
One common wire
One silver thread
AMY GOODMAN: "Grateful," performed by Patti Smith, as we spend the hour with the great poet, writer, activist, musician. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We continue our conversation with Patti Smith, the legendary poet, singer, author and activist. She has just published a new memoir titled M Train. It’s a follow-up to her best-selling memoir, Just Kids, which won a National Book Award in 2010.
AMY GOODMAN: Just Kids is about you and Robert Mapplethorpe. Did you start M Train to talk about your husband, Fred "Sonic" Smith, or to focus more on him? In ’94, you lost both him and your dear brother, Todd Smith, who was your road manager, band manager and everything, within weeks.
PATTI SMITH: I never—no. I’m doing another book, my next book, which I know what it’s going to be already, will greatly focus on Fred and my brother. I never planned to write about my brother and Fred in this book. I really wanted to be free of any expectation. I wanted to write—I knew I wanted to write about the process of writing. I wanted it to be sort of a more humorous book and just, you know, write about daily life. But they kept seeping in. Fred kept—he just kept entering. I mean, I never wrote so much about Fred since he’s passed away. He’s always with me, but I haven’t been able to write about him. I just couldn’t bear it. He just found his way in, in this book. But what’s unusual is the next book was not going to speak of this period of our life. So, it just—it just happened. And it happened so many times. I’d write, and I’d even shelve something, and then later he would come back. So I thought, well, he wants to be within the pages, so—
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us about Fred, how you met?
PATTI SMITH: I met Fred at Lafayette Coney Island. It’s a place where they sell hot dogs in Detroit. I met him on March 9th, 1976. And they threw a party. I didn’t like parties much when I was younger. I used to feel confined at them, and I would always say, "Don’t throw me some party." So they lured me, because I like hot dogs, by having an afternoon party in Detroit. So I thought, "OK, I’ll get some hot dogs." And then all the local musicians were there. So I ate my hot dog, and I was just about to leave. I was with Lenny Kaye. And this fellow was standing—he had a blue overcoat on, and he was just standing against the radiator right near the door. And I looked at him. I didn’t know who he was. He looked at me. And I swear to you I thought, "That’s the fellow I’m going to marry." I don’t know why that happened. It was an instant moment of alchemy. And I did marry him. And—
AMY GOODMAN: Who was this fellow?
PATTI SMITH: Well, he was—his name was Fred, and his nickname was Fred "Sonic" Smith. He was in the MC5, which was one of the most, you know, political bands to come out of Detroit. They played at the—in Chicago in '68. They were involved in a lot of different—a lot of protests against the Vietnam War. But I didn't know much about them. I didn’t know he was that fellow. I just knew that this human being in front of me was the person for me. And Lenny Kaye introduced us, and he said, "Patti Smith, Fred Smith. Fred Smith, Patti Smith."
AMY GOODMAN: And neither of you would have had to change your names if you got married.
PATTI SMITH: No. No, we didn’t. And we didn’t—as some people said, you know, the monogram towels didn’t have to be—as if either one of us had monogram towels. But we had a long courtship, a long-distance courtship, and—because he lived in Detroit, I lived in New York. And finally, in '79, I thought I didn't want to be parted from him anymore, so I went and lived in Detroit.
AMY GOODMAN: Is it true he said to you, "I will take you anywhere in the world, if you just have my baby"?
PATTI SMITH: He actually said he wanted a son. And he said—to be democratic, I said "child," but he asked for a son. And I said, "OK." And he took me to French Guiana, because that’s where I chose. And I did have a son. And then a little time went by, and he said, "Now I’d like a daughter." And I said, "OK." And it took a little longer, but we had our daughter. So, I’m so glad he asked, too, because my children are the most precious thing that I have.
AMY GOODMAN: Could you just tell us about Guiana, why you chose Guiana and what you did there?
PATTI SMITH: Well, I think that Fred, when he said that he would take me anywhere in the world, figured I’d want to go, you know, to Paris or—
AMY GOODMAN: The Riviera?
PATTI SMITH: Well, not the Riviera, but he knew that I would pick something slightly eccentric or, you know, go visit Arthur Rimbaud’s grave in Charleville or something. But I had done that, so I chose Saint-Laurent in French Guiana, because I really loved Genet. And Genet in, I think—I think it’s The Thief’s Journal or—I can’t remember which book it is.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain who Jean Genet is.
PATTI SMITH: Jean Genet, one of our—the great French writers of the 20th century, who really—who was, you know, not a very good thief, but a great poet and prose writer, and wrote of marginalized society in the 20th century, ’40s and the ’50s, and a great playwright. And I chose French Guiana because Jean Genet always wanted to go to Saint-Laurent prison. He was very Romantic. All of the murderers and the pimps and the worst of the thieves all went to French Guiana. And it was a terrible place. Everyone died of malaria or piranha. But he wanted to go, because he was a great Romantic, and he wanted to go with the worst criminals. But just as he was sent to prison for life for thievery, they closed the prison down, and he never got there. And he mourned that. He wrote about it several times.
AMY GOODMAN: He stole for nothing?
PATTI SMITH: He had actually—he actually said, "I have been shorn of my infamy," because he could never go. And then I knew that he was ill. And I hadn’t met him, but I of course knew William Burroughs and Allen Ginsburg and Gregory Corso—I knew his friends. And I thought I was going to go to French Guiana and get something from the earth of French Guiana for him, bring him back some of the soil, bring him back some stones, so he would have that. And then I thought, well, William or someone could give them to him. And so, I told Fred this. And Fred didn’t mock me, he didn’t protest. He was a man true to his word, and he said, "All right, we’ll go to French Guiana." So we did.
AMY GOODMAN: You went to prison there.
PATTI SMITH: We went to prison, yeah.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Jean Genet is also—one of his books, called Prisoner of Love, was published posthumously, in which he wrote about his meetings with the Black Panthers here in the U.S. and also his visits to Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan.
PATTI SMITH: Yes.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Could you talk about that book and also, more broadly, what you see as the relationship between that kind of art and politics?
PATTI SMITH: Well, I think that Jean Genet, in his early life, he mixed his sexual encounters, his homosexual persuasion, thieves and murderers—he melded all of that into art and elevated these characters in his work. And as he got older, he got very, very involved in political causes. He was especially concerned with the plight of the Palestinians. And I think that in the—toward the end of his life, he wanted to do the same with these people, elevate them, not as outlaws or terrorists or marginalized people, but people that had a true cause and people that needed to be represented and spoken for. And so, he worked on this book at the end of his life. When he died, he had just finished the galleys on Prisoner of Love. It was—he died in a little Paris hotel, and that manuscript was sitting on the bed stand.
And it’s also—you know, it’s a very beautiful book, not just because of the political element, but it’s beautiful because Genet was never one to sympathize much with women, but the strongest—I shouldn’t say characters, because it’s a nonfiction book, but the people that emerged the strongest in this book are the women, the women who are left behind in war, the women who wind up taking care of the children, then the grandmothers taking care of the grandchildren, and, you know, the strength and resilience of the women. And I thought that was quite beautiful for him to do at the end of his life.
WATCH MORE
Patti Smith on Closing Guantánamo, Remembering Rachel Corrie and Feeling Frustrated with Obama
Patti Smith on 19th Century Poet William Blake and on Creating Political Art ‘Unapologetically’
‘People Have the Power’: Patti Smith on Pope Francis and Her Performances at the VaticanRead More →
Patti Smith on Closing Guantánamo, Remembering Rachel Corrie and Feeling Frustrated with Obama
Beside being known for her music and writing, Patti Smith has been a longtime activist, performing regularly at antiwar rallies and political benefits. She has also written songs about former Guantánamo prisoner Murat Kurnaz and Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old college student who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza in 2003. She talks about these songs and her assessment of the Obama administration.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: And you also, Patti Smith, talk about—in your songs, in your poetry, you wrote about Qana. You wrote about and you performed about Rachel Corrie, who died March 16th, 2003, right before the invasion, the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when she was standing before an Israeli military bulldozer trying to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian family’s home, who she knew well.
PATTI SMITH: Well, you know, again, it’s the other thing, when—when you cite me as an activist, this always humbles me, in the same way when people call me a musician. I can’t call myself a real activist. I have never done anything. I have never put my life on the line. I admire these people so much. And all I can do really is—because that’s not my calling in life. I’m not really a deeply political person. I’m more of, I hope, a humanist. But what I can do is to remember these people and to sing of them. I wrote of a fellow in Guantánamo Bay. I wrote—I write of these people and sing of them so their names aren’t forgotten.
Rachel Corrie, you know, such a lovely girl, who, you know, she—I’m sure she did not want to give her life. She stood up for what she believed in. And I think she believed, like Anne Frank said, "I believe that people are good at heart." And I think that she never thought that she would die for this cause. I don’t think she wanted to die. But she did. And I wanted her to be remembered.
All of my songs are in that vent. They try to take the humanist view, like in "Radio Baghdad." After the Iraq War—war, not really a war—invasion, immoral invasion—I was heartbroken, but there was—what could I do? I wanted to say something, but I didn’t want to go on a political rant. So I—what do I know best? I’m a mother. I could—I shut my eyes, imagined how I would feel if I was trying to, you know, comfort my daughter Jesse while bombs were falling on the city. And I took it from that mother’s point of view. And she tells of her history, the history of her people, and what is happening, you know, with bombs falling and how the infrastructure of her country is going to be destroyed.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Let’s go to a clip from "Radio Baghdad."
PATTI SMITH: [singing] Oh, to the zero
The perfect number
We invented the zero
And we mean nothing to you
Our children run through the streets
And you sent your flames
Your shooting stars
Shock and awe
Shock and awe
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That’s a clip from Patti Smith’s song, "Radio Baghdad."
AMY GOODMAN: You also talked about Guantánamo, because these were all intertwined. You had the prisons of Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram. You had the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Your song in 2006, "Without Chains," about the Turkish citizen—
PATTI SMITH: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —in Guantánamo, who you mentioned, Murat Kurnaz. And you ended up writing the introduction, right?
PATTI SMITH: Yes, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: To his book, Five Years of My Life.
PATTI SMITH: Well, I wrote about him because I read an article. Again, it’s like I can’t, you know, really claim to be doing all the groundwork that others do. So many people, including Vanessa Redgrave, worked so hard to get him out of prison. I wasn’t part of that. But when I read about it, and read how he could hardly walk to meet his family—he kept buckling because he had been in chains for so long that his legs, he had lost a lot of muscular sense in his legs—and I was so moved by that and so angered, that I wrote the song. And later his lawyer played the song to him as an expression of how people hadn’t forgotten him, that there was somebody that he didn’t even know, this girl that writes songs, had written a song for him. And I did meet him. And now he’s doing very well. He speaks against social injustice. He has children. And it’s very heartening.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to "Without Chains."
PATTI SMITH: [singing] Four long years
I wasn’t a man
Dreaming in chains
With the lights on
Four long years
With nothing to say
Thoughts impure
At Guantánamo Bay
And I’m learning
To walk
Without chains
To walk
Without chains
To walk
Without chains
Without chains
Without chains
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Patti Smith performing "Without Chains."
NERMEEN SHAIKH: You campaigned for Barack Obama in 2008. I wanted to ask—both at your concerts and on your website—how would you evaluate his presidency now, as we near the end of his second term?
PATTI SMITH: Well, I can’t say that I so heavily campaigned for—I mean, once he was running, you know, he was our choice. I thought it would be a beautiful and healing thing for us to have the openness and—to elect a black president. But I was worried. My concern about Obama was that he had a good sense of community and knew how to gather young people, and I thought that was a beautiful thing, but I was concerned that he might be green within the political structure. And I just—you know, the last eight years have been so frustrating—I can’t imagine how frustrating for him, but also as a citizen who had certain hopes. I hoped that he would close Guantánamo Bay. I hoped that he would not just pull back troops, but also bring us into a different kind of consciousness. But I feel, in the last eight years, not only by necessity, but by design, we’ve become even more military, more involved in so many different wars and skirmishes that I don’t even understand.
And, you know, I’m really actually the wrong person to talk to, because I’m not politically articulate. I feel bad actually talking on this show, where I watch to really find out from you what is happening. But I’ll say, as a citizen, I found him—he’s so likable. I love his family. I was proud to have him as president. But I don’t—I have to say, I don’t really understand him. I understand him now when he speaks about the need for gun control. I understand when he is, you know, really speaking from his heart. But so many things have been, you know, cloaked. Why are we doing all these strikes, where—all these drones, all of these things? We’re not being informed. That’s probably the best way I can say it. I don’t feel informed by the Obama administration.
AMY GOODMAN: Patti Smith, the legendary poet, author and singer. We’ll return to our conversation with her in a moment.
WATCH MORE
Legendary Patti Smith on Her New Memoir ‘M Train’ & National Book Award Winner ‘Just Kids’
Patti Smith on 19th Century Poet William Blake and on Creating Political Art ‘Unapologetically’Read More →
Patti Smith on 19th Century Poet William Blake and on Creating Political Art "Unapologetically"
Legendary musician Patti Smith performs her song "My Blakean Year" in the Democracy Now! studio and talks about the influence of poet William Blake (1757–1827). We also air a recording of Smith singing a version of Blake’s poem "The Tyger." Smith has long been praised for mixing poetry and rock music.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
PATTI SMITH: [singing] In my Blakean year
I was so disposed
Toward a mission yet unclear
Advancing pole by pole
Fortune breathed into my ears
Obey this simple code
One road was paved in gold
One road was just a road
In my Blakean year
Such a woeful schism
The pain in our existence
Was not as I envisioned
AMY GOODMAN: That was Patti Smith performing her song "My Blakean Year." This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we spend the hour with Patti Smith, we asked her to explain what led her to write a song inspired by William Blake, the late 18th, early 19th century English Romantic poet.
PATTI SMITH: "My Blakean Year" is another song I wrote myself. The reason I’m singing songs I wrote myself, they’re the only ones I can play, because they only have a few chords. But I wrote "My Blakean Year," again, because I was in a difficult time, and I felt—I hate to say it, but I felt like sorry for myself. And it was like another thing where this—I was sitting—I was just sitting in my room, and then I thought of William Blake. You know, I felt like very unappreciated or something—I don’t know why. But I was thinking of William Blake, who was such a great artist, poet, printer, philosopher, activist, who died in poverty, was ridiculed in his time, who was almost forgotten. But in his lifetime—and also such a true visionary—he never let go of his visionary powers. He did his work, even thought the Industrial Revolution sort of wiped him out in terms of being a printer and a public artist. He got in a lot of trouble because of his political views. He championed women, and he was against children, women and children laboring. They didn’t have labor laws in place at that time. And he did his work, and he did it unapologetically. And he also did it without remorse or feeling sorry for himself, and just accepted, you know, his particular lot and just kept working.
Anyway, sorry that took so long to say, but basically the lesson is that people—other people in the world, I know, really suffer strife. They really know strife. They have to deal with war. They have to deal with disease, poverty, displacement. When I look at everyone around me, I have to really counsel and scold myself when I feel, you know, a little sorry for myself. And so, this song is to remind me of that, but also remember to—when you take on the mantle of an artist or an activist, you know that you’re going to have a lot of derision. So, you have to meet that derision almost with pride. You know, you have to be a happy warrior.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I’d like to turn now to a clip of Patti Smith singing one of William Blake’s most famous poems, "The Tyger."
PATTI SMITH: [singing] Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Patti Smith, could you talk about that performance of William Blake’s poem, "The Tyger," why you chose that poem, and, in particular, the phrase that you’ve spoken of, "fearful symmetry"?
PATTI SMITH: Well, I’ve found a lot of fearful symmetry in my life. I think that, for me, the most fearful piece of symmetry, for instance—it’s even hard to talk about. My husband died in November of 1994, and my brother, who really expressed that he would help me raise my children, comforted my children, and who I deeply counted on, died suddenly from a faulty heart valve a month later—November 4th and December 4th. That was a bit of fearful symmetry. My husband died on Robert Mapplethorpe’s birthday, which was a bit of fearful symmetry. Robert died on my husband and my anniversary. These things, they happen to everyone, but you look at them and gasp, because they have a certain kind of perfection, but that perfection is just bleeding sorrow. So, that, for me, is what a fearful symmetry is.
But I performed—I don’t really remember. I do a lot of things off the cuff. I was supposed to—I think I was asked to read "Tyger, Tyger" at a museum performance. And I often find reading poetry—quite beautiful, poetry is, but I always seem to want to take it to the next level. Something within me wants to sing poetry, which is really how I wound up having a rock 'n' roll band, just singing poetry. And then I wound up singing "Tyger, Tyger," because whenever I read it, I hear the music. But William Blake was known for his singing voice, and I’m sure he sang these poems, but we don’t have any record of it. But his music is infused in his words, because where else would I have gotten it? So, I hope that answers your question.
AMY GOODMAN: And I wanted to ask you about art and resistance.
PATTI SMITH: Well, I think that we’re in a very—you know, if you would have asked me this question in the '60s or ’70s, I would have given a different answer, because there was such a strong coalition of artists who were working in one mind against the war in Vietnam. It's a little harder now, because our people are so spread out. Even with so-called social media and technology that’s supposed to bring us together, we seem so spread out. We don’t seem all connected. And our numbers, to me, have diminished.
And we really—you know, I look at who is—who are really stepping out in the arts? Often it’s the people in Hollywood. You have, you know, [Angelina] Jolie and George Clooney, and there’s—and Sean Penn. They are really doing things, hands-on things. They go to the countries that are in strife. They do groundwork. They go and lobby. And it’s quite inspiring to see what they’re doing. I think that we’re all a bit disconnected, and what we really need is one common cause. And I know—we have it. It’s our—our environment is our greatest—I think should be our—is our biggest global concern, over everything. I know that, you know, our government would like us to think it’s terrorism. And I know that all of these things are—you know, it’s so complicated, and all of these things are important, but environmental terrorism is something that we’re all committing. And, you know, it’s an opportunity for a lot of us to come together.
I’m very proud of my daughter. You mentioned in the beginning, Jesse arranged with a friend of hers Pathway to Paris. She’s very, very concerned with climate change. And she has drawn a lot of artists and musicians. I don’t know how she did it. I have no organizational skills. And she has gotten Flea and Thom Yorke and Jane Fonda, and there’s several other people that want to come and help. I think [Leonardo] DiCaprio. There’s a lot of people from different walks of life. And, of course, 360 and many different speaker—
AMY GOODMAN: 350.
PATTI SMITH: 350, I’m sorry. See, she’s the one. She would be so mad at me right now. And she’s very connected with 350. And she’s an example of what—how our new generation, how young people are finding a way to use social media for their advantage, for something positive, for bringing people together.
WATCH MORE
Legendary Patti Smith on Her New Memoir ‘M Train’ & National Book Award Winner ‘Just Kids’
Patti Smith on Closing Guantánamo, Remembering Rachel Corrie and Feeling Frustrated with Obama
‘People Have the Power’: Patti Smith on Pope Francis and Her Performances at the VaticanRead More →
"People Have the Power": Patti Smith on Pope Francis and Her Performances at the Vatican
Over the last two years, Patti Smith has twice been invited to sing at the Vatican. We air part of her performance of "People Have the Power" and talk to her about why she cheered when the new pope took the name Francis after St. Francis of Assisi.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s end on the issue of climate change, where we’re headed, this Pathway to Paris. You’ll be performing there. But also you’ve performed at the Vatican, and you’ve met Pope Francis. Can you talk about those experiences and what he means to you, this latest pope?
PATTI SMITH: Well, I was studying Francis of Assisi for quite some time, when Benedict was still the pope. And I was studying it for a song that I did for my last album, Banga. And I was so taken with the life of St. Francis, and I thought this was truly the environmentalist saint, because he called upon the people, even in the 12th century, to have appreciation and respect Mother Nature. And I thought it would be so beautiful if there was a pope named Francis, who could embrace the idea of disseminating material things, and—but becoming close to nature and understanding how important it is to respect the Earth. And I met some monks in Assisi, and they said, "This will never happen." You know, I talked to the monks because I was doing research. "We’ll never have a Pope Francis, because Francis, St. Francis, was too rebellious. We’re never going to have a Jesuit or a Franciscan." And I said, "Well, you know, let’s hope."
And then, when Benedict stepped down, I was watching television with my daughter, and the white smoke had come up, and so we were waiting to see who would be pope. And we had to wait a long time, like 45 minutes. And in this 45 minutes, I told Jesse how much I wanted a pope named Francis and why, and I told her the story of St. Francis. And she was saying, "Oh, Mommy, I hope you get a Pope Francis." I mean, I’m not a Catholic, but I still wanted a Pope Francis. And we’re watching and watching, and then they came out, and, lo and behold, they announce the new pope, and it’s Pope Francis. We were like jumping up and down as if we were at the Kentucky Derby and our horse came in. So, I was quite happy, because I knew anyone who took on this name was taking on a great mantle of responsibility.
And I think that Pope Francis is doing his best, within a very intense structure, to do that. He has really simplified all the pomp and circumstance of the church. He’s gone into the Vatican Bank. He is standing to—you know, in account for the violations against young people sexually. And he has written such beautiful lessons and letters to us all, and recently in concern—with concern about climate change and our environment. And so, yeah, I mean, I did—I sang at the Vatican Christmas concert. I think I was the only American.
AMY GOODMAN: What did you sing?
PATTI SMITH: I sang "O Holy Night" with the Vatican orchestra, but also a Blake—a lullaby that William Blake wrote for the Christ child, and I set it to music, and the Vatican orchestra played the music.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: What was it called?
PATTI SMITH: "The Cradle Song," and a very pretty little poem. And so I—
AMY GOODMAN: Did "People Have the Power" make its way in there?
PATTI SMITH: Yes, we did perform "People Have the Power," because they requested it. It was a Christmas concert, so I wasn’t going to do that, but they really wanted it. I’ve done it for two years, and I did this last one with my daughter Jesse.
PATTI SMITH: [singing] I was dreamin’ in my dreamin’
Of an aspect bright and fair
And my sleepin’ it was broken
But my dream it lingered near
In the form of shinin’ valleys
Where the pure air recognized
And my senses newly opened
And I awakened to the cry
And the people have the power
To redeem the work of fools
On the meek the graces shower
It’s decreed the people rule
People have the power
People have the power
People have the power
People have the power
Believe it!
Where there were deserts, I saw fountains
And like cream the waters rise
And we strolled there together
With none to laugh or criticize
There is no leopard and the lamb
And lay together truly bound
Well I was hopin’ in my hopin’
To recall what I had found
I was dreamin’ in my dreamin’
God knows a pure view
As I surrender into my sleepin’
And I commit my dream with you
Come on!
People have the power to dream!
People have the power to vote!
People have the power to strike!
People have the power to love!
The power to dream, to rule
To wrestle the world from fools
It’s decreed the people rule
Let’s decree the people rule
Listen, I believe everythin’ we dream
Can come to pass through our union
We can turn the world around
We can turn the earth’s revolution
AMY GOODMAN: Patti Smith, the legendary poet, author and singer, performing "People Have the Power" at the Vatican. Her new memoir, M Train, has just been published. We’ll play more of our interview with Patti Smith next week. Her previous book, Just Kids, won the National Book Award.
WATCH MORE
Legendary Patti Smith on Her New Memoir ‘M Train’ & National Book Award Winner ‘Just Kids’
Patti Smith on Closing Guantánamo, Remembering Rachel Corrie and Feeling Frustrated with Obama
Patti Smith on 19th Century Poet William Blake and on Creating Political Art ‘Unapologetically’Read More →
Headlines:
Obama Apologizes to Doctors Without Borders for Deadly Hospital Strike
President Obama has personally apologized to Doctors Without Borders for the U.S. airstrike that struck its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 12 staff members and 10 patients, including three children, on Saturday. White House spokesperson Josh Earnest announced the apology.
Josh Earnest: "President Obama spoke by telephone with Doctors Without Borders International President Dr. Joanne Liu to apologize and express his condolences for the MSF staff and patients who were killed and injured when a U.S. military airstrike mistakenly struck an MSF field hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, over the weekend."
In response, Doctors Without Borders repeated its demand for an independent investigation into what it has called a possible war crime. The organization has said U.S. forces knew the coordinates of the hospital and continued the attack for half an hour after being informed a hospital had been hit.
Russia Fires Missiles in Syria as U.S. Rejects Cooperation on ISIL
Russia has escalated its military campaign in Syria, saying it has launched more than two dozen cruise missile attacks from naval vessels in the Caspian Sea. This comes as Russian airstrikes reportedly destroyed the weapons depot of a U.S.-trained Syrian rebel group. Russia said Wednesday it was willing to coordinate with the U.S. on the military campaign against ISIL in Syria, an offer that the Pentagon rejected, citing Russia’s "flawed strategy."
Yemen: U.S.-Backed, Saudi-Led Airstrike Kills 23 at Wedding Party
In Yemen, a Saudi-led airstrike has killed at least 23 people attending a wedding party south of the capital Sana’a Wednesday. Another Saudi-led airstrike killed at least 70 people attending a wedding last week. The United Nations says the U.S.-backed bombing campaign in Yemen has killed more than 1,100 civilians in the past six months. Amnesty International has called on the United States to halt arms transfers to Saudi Arabia or risk being complicit in war crimes.
Coast Guard Ends Search for Survivors from Sunken El Faro
The U.S. Coast Guard has called off the search for surviving crew members from the cargo ship El Faro, which sank off the Bahamas after being battered by Hurricane Joaquin over the weekend. Thirty-three people were on board, most of them American. Scientists have linked stronger hurricanes to climate change.
CA Gov. Jerry Brown Signs Law to Require 50% Renewable Energy by 2030
In California, Governor Jerry Brown has signed a new law requiring the state to produce half of all of its electricity using renewable energy by 2030. Brown said the bill was a step toward a "de-carbonized future."
Volkswagen CEO to Testify to Congress He Knew of Emissions Cheating
Volkswagen CEO Michael Horn will testify to U.S. Congress today that he knew of the auto giant’s emissions cheating devices as early as spring 2014. This comes as Volkswagen says it will launch a massive recall in January of diesel cars that were illegally installed with devices used to cheat EPA emissions rules. A New York Times analysis estimates the extra pollution may have caused more than 100 deaths in the United States alone.
GOP-Led House Creates Special Committee to Probe Planned Parenthood
House Republicans have launched their latest attack on Planned Parenthood, establishing a select committee with the power to subpoena documents and testimony. The move follows the release by an anti-choice group of heavily edited undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sharing of fetal tissue with researchers. Republican Utah Congressmember Jason Chaffetz, who presided over a five-hour hearing grilling Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards last week, has acknowledged to CNN: "I’m not suggesting that [Planned Parenthood] broke the law." Chaffetz is seeking to become the next speaker of the House.
Senate Democrats Renew Push for Gun Control Legislation
Senate Democrats are launching a renewed push for gun control legislation in the wake of the mass shooting which killed nine people at a community college in Oregon last week. The package includes expanded background checks for gun purchases. While the proposal is likely to fail amid Republican opposition, Democrats reportedly plan to block other measures until gun control receives a vote.
CIA Sued over Documents on Retired U.S.-Trained Salvadoran Officer
The University of Washington has sued the CIA over the agency’s withholding of documents about the U.S.-trained retired Salvadoran Army officer Sigifredo Ochoa Pérez. He is currently under investigation in El Salvador for his role in the 1981 Santa Cruz massacre, in which dozens of civilians were killed by soldiers under his command.
FIFA President and Top Officials Suspended amid Swiss Investigation
Longtime FIFA President Sepp Blatter and other top officials have been suspended for 90 days as Swiss authorities investigate their involvement in the growing corruption scandal that has thrown the world soccer governing body into turmoil. This comes after FIFA’s second-ranking official was placed on leave last month. The suspensions take effect immediately.
Hillary Clinton Comes Out Against Trans-Pacific Partnership
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, days after the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations reached an agreement on the deal Monday. Clinton made the remarks on PBS NewsHour.
Hillary Clinton: "What I know about it, as of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it. And there’s one other element I want to make, because I think it’s important. Trade agreements don’t happen in a vacuum, and in order for us to have a competitive economy in the global marketplace, there are things we need to do here at home that help raise wages, and the Republicans have blocked everything President Obama tried to do on that front. So, for the larger issues, and then what I know — and again, I don’t have the text, we don’t yet have all the details — I don’t believe it’s going to meet the high bar I have set."
Clinton’s rival candidate, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has long opposed the TPP.
Rupert Murdoch Suggests Obama is Not a "Real Black President"
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is facing a torrent of criticism on social media after posting a tweet suggesting President Obama is not a "real black president." Murdoch expressed support for African-American Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, tweeting, "What about a real black President who can properly address the racial divide?"
Review Board: NYPD Officer Slammed James Blake with "Excessive Force"
In New York City, a police review board has recommended disciplining officer James Frascatore for using excessive force when he slammed retired African-American tennis star James Blake to the ground last month. Officer Frascatore will now face internal NYPD proceedings that could lead to his dismissal. He has a lengthy pattern of excessive force complaints against him.
Belarusian Writer Svetlana Alexievich Wins Nobel Prize in Literature
And the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Svetlana Alexievich, a Belarusian journalist and writer. She is best known for giving voice to survivors of World War II, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. She becomes the 14th woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Donate today:Follow:
COLUMN
"Grace Lee Boggs: A Century of Grass-Roots Organizing" by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
mericanrevolutionaryfilm.com
Grace Lee Boggs died this week at the age of 100. “She left this life as she lived it: surrounded by books, politics, people and ideas,” said her friends and caretakers, Shea Howell and Alice Jennings. Grace Lee Boggs was not only a grass-roots organizer, but a philosopher, a teacher and a revolutionary. She devoted her life to empowering the poor, the working class and communities of color, and was deeply involved with a constellation of movements, from civil rights and black power to labor, environmental justice and feminism. She lived for more than 60 years in Detroit, and witnessed that city transform from the world capital of the automobile industry, through social protest and unrest in the 1960s, to the post-industrial era, where, behind the crumbling facade of empty factories, myriad experiments in urban renewal and local self-reliance are incubating.
“You don’t choose the times you live in, but you do choose who you want to be, and you do choose how you want to think,” she told a group of undergraduates in the film about her life, “American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs.” This remarkable woman lived that credo for a full century.
Grace Lee Boggs was born in 1915, the child of Chinese immigrants, above the family’s restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island. By 16, she was at Barnard College, and by the age of 25 had her Ph.D. in philosophy from Bryn Mawr. I asked her how she became an activist:
“In those days, even department stores would come out and say, ‘We don’t hire Orientals,’” she told me. With her doctorate in hand, she moved to Chicago, where, she said, “I got a job in the philosophy library for $10 a week ... it wasn’t enough to get a place to live, other than [a] basement, rent-free. I had to face down a barricade of rats in order to get to the basement. That made me rat-conscious, made me join a tenants’ committee against rat-infested housing, which brought me into contact with the black community for the first time in my life, and enabled me to become part of the March on Washington movement organized by A. Philip Randolph.”
We should thank those Chicago rats for spurring her to action. The “March on Washington” she mentioned was not the well-known march from 1963, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, but rather the 1941 March on Washington. The renowned labor leader A. Philip Randolph, along with the gay, black pacifist Bayard Rustin, both of whom would later lead the famous 1963 march, organized a similar march two decades earlier. In 1940, they saw that domestic war production was lifting hundreds of thousands of white workers out of the prolonged poverty of the Great Depression, but, as most production plants were segregated, was leaving black workers behind. The movement they built forced President Franklin Roosevelt to integrate the plants involved in building the arms for World War II. This helped spur the great migration of African-Americans from the Jim Crow South to the industrial cities of the North.
Grace Lee Boggs married, but not the first man who proposed to her. He was Kwame Nkrumah, who met Grace in 1945, while studying in the United States. He would return to Africa and become the founding president of Ghana. Grace would say of his proposal, “I was completely taken by surprise ... I declined because I couldn’t imagine myself being politically active in a country where I was totally ignorant of the history, geography and culture.” Nkrumah said later, “If Grace had married me, we would have changed all Africa.”
Instead, she changed America. Ultimately, Grace would marry autoworker Jimmy Boggs, and they formed an intellectual and organizing team that became legendary in Detroit. “Jimmy came out of the Deep South,” she told me. “He had a sense of the agricultural epoch. Then he came and worked in the plant and had a sense of the industrial epoch.
“Detroit, which was once the symbol of miracles of industrialization and then became the symbol of the devastation of deindustrialization,” Grace Lee Boggs explained, “is now the symbol of a new kind of society, of people who grow their own food, of people who try and help each other, to how we begin to think, not so much of getting jobs and advancing our own fortunes, but how we depend on each other. I mean, it’s another world that we’re creating here in Detroit.”
She founded Detroit Summer in 1992, to bring young people together to work on innovative urban renewal. The fruits of her labor continue to grow around the city, with urban farms, microenterprises and a focus on the local economy.
Grace Lee Boggs lived a life that spanned a century, from World War I through the digital age. Young people flocked to meet her at her home, now the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership, following in her footsteps, learning, as she said, that “the only way to survive is by taking care of one another.”
WEB EXCLUSIVE
Director of Development
207 West 25th Street, 11th Floor
New York, New York 10001, United States
____________________________
____________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment