Julia Gets Wise with Patti Smith
01:14:34 Share

Well, hi there. It's me. Julia li drive us. We're back for season three of wise than me. We've got so much more wisdom to share from the magnificent old ladies featured this season to celebrate the start of season three. We've added some gruy new items to our wise of the me merchandise collection.

Head over to merch shop to check out all of our great stuff, like a classic wiser than me bag tote bag, a kitchen tea tower with my grandma d is delicious pana butter cookie recipe featured on IT and a brand new gorgeous hard cover rather than mean notebook to capture all of this season's bits of wisdom. Start shopping today by visiting rather than me shop dot com. lemonade.

So I made a friend back when my son Henry was in high school. This wonderful woman named beer git, 来， go get the beer that used to make her laugh. SHE was originally from austria.

SHE had a fantastic accent, and this rockin body and blond hair and a big, genuine smile. And SHE had a way about her that when you were in her presence, IT felt like anything was possible and that, well, everything was gonna be OK. Which, as you'll see, is a little ironic.

As anyone who is a parent knows, when your children are pre scholars and kindergarteners, you must accompany them on their play dates. I, me, I guess there's some parents who don't feel like that, but I always went on play dates with my kids when they were little, which meant that I had to make conversation with the other kids, mom, dad, for like three hours. And this could be, and Frankly, generally was excruciating.

I mean, like mind numbingly dull. And this was the truth for me. Until I met bargate.

Play dates with bargate were spectacular, and there were a lot of play dates because our Younger son charlie, was obsessed with beer. Gott's Younger son ben IT was true love, and he demanded playdate after play day. And this was after our older children, Henry in zai, had been free school. Playday pales, too.

So that's dozens and dozens of play, eight years of play dates, which was sublime for me, because after a play date with beer, gin, I always felt like I gotten a good break, like I had travelled to some wonderful country, and all aspects of life were catapulted into proper perspective. SHE was completely comfortable in her own skin. SHE seemed to be right there, right where he was, do you know? I mean, does that makes sense? SHE wasn't looking to go anywhere or in a hurry to accomplish some goal.

That's kind of the opposite of me in a way that's actually totally the opposite of me. And I just love that about her. Our relationship was easy and almost immediately intimate and unspeakably delightful.

We'd go on long hikes and have deep conversations about family philosophy and nature and spiritualism and sex and traveling, cooking and chocolate and and of course, our children. So one day we took this particular hike up, and loosely on is canyon hear mosen ela. When all the sudden n are too Youngest charlie and her benny disappeared.

These two little three year old boys, they're been happily in tow, and now they were just gone. The two older kids, beautiful soa, which is what charly called her, by the way, as if that was her name. And our Henry, they didn't know what they'd gone.

So of course, we called for them and we yelled for them. We scream for them, actually, and they didn't answer. And I got really scary really quickly, and I was dusk, and the older kids were freaking out, and we were freaking out.

And this went on, I don't know, like ten or fifteen, you know, even maybe twenty minutes, just very, very long time, too long. And we were just about to call the police when we heard giggling. And these two little boys emerged onto the trail from behind a big rock because they've been playing hidden seek.

But they forgot to tell us that they were playing hiding sake. And I had that terrible combination of profound relief and furious anger. And I grab my charlie, and I get my sweat on the, but which is the one, and only time ever did that.

F, Y. I. And then I looked over and I saw a beer get pic beny up in a most loving embrace, and he wrapped himself around her, just like a tiny little monkey.

So of course, this makes me cry, because beer git, as you've probably guessed, isn't alive anymore. And as I say that I honest, I just cannot leave that. That's true.

One time when I went to see her in the hospital, I went in and he was fighting at just the most wicked disease. And SHE was wearing one of those awful Green hospital gowns. But SHE somehow made IT look shek for real.

And SHE was sitting on the floor wearing these awesome clunk y army boots. And I remember thinking, I got ta get one of those hospital cats. And SHE looks so cool and beautiful.

And we talked about what we were gonna when he got, well, we were gna spend a whole months in italy together, and we are going to go hiking and eating, and we were going to be laughing. And, you know, he was just an extraordinary friend. Now, beer gut wasn't a politician or an actress or an executive type or whatever.

SHE was just the best possible person. SHE had this open, harder, tender way of participating in life. And that's a thing I was talking about.

You know, SHE made you feel like anything was possible, which I know sounds crazy, but that's what I was like with her. Know, yeah, yeah. Let's go to italy and hike for a month. And i'm going to learn how to scope.

Why should I learn how to scope? Some people have the power to make us feel like that often times they are artists, right? They make us look at the familiar in a brand new way. Things get clear after you're with them.

M, you find yourself saying to yourself, well, i'm going to look at all the things I have on my bookshelf and i'm going to i'm going to think about what each little bitcoin bob means to me. You know you think, wow, I never saw that before and that's bargain. You know, SHE didn't paint her sing, living, living, that was her art and now she's gone, which is terribly said, you know, with the flip side of her joy coin because he gave us so much joy.

Yes, so you have to look for those people in the world. The anything is possible, people, the people who make living life into an art. And today we are talking to Patty smith.

Hi, i'm july. All the we drive this and this is wiser than me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me.

Our guess today is, how should I put this? SHE is one of the greatest figures in rock and roll history, but musician isn't the right way to introduce her, because SHE defies category. Ation, artist, poet, writer, president, a punk. Let's just say worker, because that's how SHE has described herself.

SHE was at the forefront of the one thousand nine hundred and seventy y's new york punk rock cine putting her words over the sounds of a great band for her smash debut album horses, which, if you haven't listened to IT lately, go back and play IT today, it'll really surprise you because, yeah, it's fantastic punk. But it's also so musical and so thought, fully written and well played. With that record, SHE totally redefined what a female rockstar could be inspiring that whole first wave, a female punk artist, and every wave since.

And then at the peak of rocks and roll fame, SHE stepped away from the spotlight and moved to detroit with her husband, the lead guitars from M C. Five fred sonic smith, to raise a family together. Sixteen years later, SHE burst back into the music world and started performing again. SHE hasn't missed a beat since she's a rock and roll hall of fame inducted. She's one of rolling stone magazines one hundred greatest artists of all time, but she's also won the national book award for just kids, the memory of her relationship with photographer and artist robber maple.

Through we froze. I think Robert visited.

I'm frozen. Fuck god, fucking diamond. Hey, party work here. We're just .

figuring that out. I'll be right there. I think IT was the compliment. Gods, they were saying I was getting too many compliments.

Patty, how long is is this? I mean, i'm right in the middle of your bigger introduction in my zoom freezes, oh my god. Okay, I think everything fix.

I'm so sorry about that. When did this happen? When did I freeze? Petty at .

maple thorp, you were saying at Robert maple thorp and just at the word maple thorp.

okay, fine. So i'll started over there at that sense. Take two. She's also won the national book award for just kids, the memorial of her relationship with photographer and artist Robert maple.

But even that book is hard to category because it's so much more than a memory. It's a love story. It's a poem.

IT doesn't matter what the medium SHE just creates wildly with abandoned and independence. If her power, bob downs is the first pot of folk. She's the first poet of punk.

She's collaborated with everybody from lue read and john hale to Bruce spring scene. And SHE does the best cover of the my generation ever. And he is still doing at all, writing, touring and being Patty smith, a woman who is so much wiser than me. Hi Patty smith.

I'm hi Julia. I'm not so sure i'm wiser, but I know .

you are.

but thank you very much. And yes, I do like to think of myself is a worker. That's hell.

I define myself, but also a mother. So that's because there are the two things that I do every single day. I just can escape either one of them happily.

the idea .

of working and being, you know, there for my children who are quite grown.

yes, and not in the same category as you. I'm a worker, and i'm also a mother of two grown children, two Young men who I call my boys. Hey, listen, are you comfortable if I ask you your real age?

Seventy seven.

seventy seven.

I've never had a fake cage. I don't. I've never claimed to be in the age that I am, but I turned seventy seven on december thirty.

And how old do you feel?

Party, well, my other age is about nine to eleven, which is really the the way that I sort of m in my head. yes. And you know, really, I mean, i've always been sort of youthful, but as I get older, we have more chAllenges, obviously, some of them more physical, all kinds of chAllenges. So I I do um feel sort of in step with my age, but the other part of me, i'm always nine, ten, eleven with my dog on my bicycle.

in my head. I think that I sent you. I mean, you are obviously a free spirit in harton soul. I mean, that just poor out of you that's obvious. Are there in any practices that hold particular significance for you now that you're seventy seven?

I'm careful with my food. I eat healthy, you know, take walk, drink a lot of water. I make sure I do my work every day.

I'm a bit of accidentally person. I'd like to sit and right and read and daydream, so I make myself take walks. But I am. My daily practice is is that I write every morning, do a little stretching and exercise that I stay you in touch with my inner life as well as my outer life. I'm not a gym person, i'm not a yoga person, but I make, you know, I make up little, even if they are pretend ballet or pretend anything, I make sure that i'm always using my body and staying in contact with IT and staying contact with my imagination.

How do you stay in contact with your imagination? What is the practice to do? I mean, I think you're just built that way. But is there something specific?

Well, I I try to, if you know our world is so troubled and yeah there's so much information, so many things to be concerned about um whether it's the environment tor or war or whatever IT is that concerns us and sometimes I can feel IT permeating my consciousness more and more yeah so I try to burst through that and you know, invent stories or read books or a look at a piece of art and see where IT takes me.

Just keep chAllenging myself to think other thoughts. We have to be print. We have to be aware of our world, but we also have to have joy. And, you know, so it's some people might call imagination, some might called sense of humor. Whatever IT is that takes us gives us a sense of feeling, our creative spirit.

yeah. Gives you a sense of hope.

Yeah, yes, yeah. We have to feel that every day, no matter how bad things are, we have to feel that, and were both mothers, we feel hope, not only for ourselves, but for our our children. We wouldn't want our kids to think .

we had no hope.

Oh my god, right? What kind of message would that be sending them?

That's funny because I saw that you said, uh, I don't remember where i've gone down the Patty Smith rabbit hole for the for you no lucky, lucky me, please. Lucky me. But you and at one point you were talking about what you stand for and you stand for children.

And that took my breath away. Party, that was so beautiful. Phone, of course it's it's pure and its IT is true, right? That's what.

Yes, you know, people get mad sometimes when you say things like that, if you say i'm for peace or I am for love, but there's a reason we say those things because they are the highest things that we can say. And you know, when people ask me, what sider you on or who do you stand for? What country? What government? And I think that, as you said, i'm for children.

I don't like here where the children come from, what they need, you know, who their parents are, what their religion is. I'm for children and taking care of them, making sure they're safe, that they have food to eat, their, that they have education, that they feel a sense of well being, that they feel love, right? You it's actually not that much different than like mother Teresa you know, is i'm like comparing i'm saying her thought, you know, people say, why do you bother with these sick and dying children? Why do you bother? And he said, because every being should feel love, and that's our responsibility. Sorry, I went on a little.

No, what's find?

My own? My own rbis all here? Yeah.

your own little private Patty smith, rbi all. But guess what? I love. IT, no, no, that's so this is what i'm so interested in expLoring with you. And I think if you talk about the lens of looking at any of the issues today, which are plentiful, of course, unfortunately, and looking at these issues through the lens of children, I think there's a kind of clarity that comes through as a result.

Yes, absolutely.

So another thing that struck me about you is that what are you? A superstitious person.

I don't think i'm classically superstitious, but I have a lot of quirks. Yeah like, I think everything you know, if I minutes, I live alone. I mean, I spend a lot of time with my daughter and and some friends, but I do live alone.

And I sort of fall back into my nine year old habits and that's thanking everything. I'll brush my teeth and I thank my tooth brochure. I don't know if I should be saying this, but if I have a really good pop, I thank my system.

You know, i'll thank the poop, but I will thank anything, or if I meeting. I'm not a vegetarian, so if i'm eating a fish, I first thanked the fish for its life, or i'll thank for vegetables for growing for me. You know, I just, it's and I don't know if that falls in the realm of superstition, but it's it's some kind of thing that i've done all my life. And as I get older, I do IT more well.

I think we should all take a page from that. I mean, you're really deeply expressing gratitude .

symbolistic grade it's like, yeah but it's like down to earth gratitude .

yeah right?

It's down to earth. I'll thank my socks for keep in my feet warm.

Um what about tasman's? What about objects? I know you're not a materialistic person, but I know that you put value on certain object.

O I mean, I can't claim to be non materialistic because I have so many books, and I love all of my books. Certain of my books are like telephones, you know, my childhood books that I still have, yeah, but I have like my my most precious thing, which I can't wear anymore because my fingers changed, is my wedding ring, which I always have.

I see.

yes, just a plain little gold wedding is just a classic little wedding ring. I always wear IT, but I have like things, usually things people give me like a month. Sissy gave me a little thing.

Francis cross IT could be, you know, I mean, I have a lot of Robert things. Yeah, I am very tell alster tic. But they they sort of shift and when I when I travel, I always take a couple of things and put a little bag, you know, to be with me.

But IT could be something precious. But for instance, here's one. Yeah, it's Roberts pencil sharpener. Oh, cool.

but it's a breast .

pencil sharpener. And we used to use IT. IT was his, but we used at so many times when we were drawing.

So I just have IT here. It's a work tool. So other things could be no.

My father's golf ball, you, I know I could be anything. So, yeah, well, I have had my children's baby teeth. Okay.

that is incredible.

Said I was the truth. Ferry.

yes, guess what? So was I. I have all of their teeth. And I often think, what can I do with these little, tiny, beautiful teeth? Put them on a necklace or something like that?

Well, you can take him with you.

Yeah, I could take him with me.

I, if I buried with anything with pockets, I want the teeth in the pockets.

What a great idea. Oh, i'm GTA do that party when I A bucket, i'm going with .

the kids. T OK.

This is, I wanted to show you a couple of telephones of mind, because, first of all, this I don't. If you can sit here .

that I see that beautiful.

that's my beauty wedding band, and we .

froze. Can you still hear me? We hear you. We are here. OK one second.

Hi, july here. Okay, let me, let me explain what's going on. Patti sees me frozen on her screen, but I don't know IT.

And I just keep going on about orange blossoms umble shit. But now here is when I realized what's happening and orange, the smell of orange. Blessing to me.

IT. Oh no, not again. Oh my god, i'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, what the fuck is happening with this .

situation? Don't worry. IT, no, it's okay. I'm not dressed for time. Yeah, you always have me. This is my favorite part, actually.

That's so funny because I was talking about my wedding ring and then you didn't say anything and I thought you .

were bored of my no, no because you froze. No, it's beautiful .

and for fuck sakes. Okay, so here and show you now this is my, I mean, serious ly, we could be here to the midnight, but here this is my wedding band. And you see, IT has orange blossoms.

It's antique, right? beautiful. Thank you. I'd love you. And when I first went to california, when I was fourteen years old, I smelled orange lessons for the first time, and I was so overcome, and I just, I can't even really articulate how much that smell means to me. And then I met this boy from california.

So to have a wedding band with orange blossoms around, I am in the meaning, is intense for me. So talk about telesp. That's so nice. Yeah, so nice.

So no, that's I mean, really it's a task, man is is so personal. IT can be you know a penny, you know you and or IT could be something extremely precious. You could have A A ruby in your pocket, but whatever IT is, it's one investor with a certain amount of no significant matter of significance. Magic poetry.

right? Yeah, that's nice. It's time for a quick break. But don't worry, there's more with Patty Smith and just a bit.

When the weather turns cooler, it's time to embrace everything. Gose and quiz has just what you need. From luxurious cashmere to soft land wear, queens offers high quality essentials at Prices that will shock you. The queen, one hundred percent marino wall scarf coat checks all the boxes, soft, warm and so stylish, she'll wonder how you ever live without IT. The attached scarf and delicate and baddy gives IT A B spoke artisan field.

While the oversize fit gives warmth and comfort you can really wrap up in is the perfect false stable item for everything you're doing, whether that's the farmers market, brunch with friends or just walking the dog. And where else can you get one hundred percent marino wolf for these Prices? Here's the best part.

Queen cuts out the middleman and works directly with the best factory so you can get a gorgeous high quality wardrobe for a fraction of what you'd pay elsewhere. No, Marcus, no gimmicks, just pure timeless comfort that doesn't break the bank. Get cozy in quince's high quality wardrobe essentials.

Go to queen stock com, flash wiser for free shipping on your order. And three hundred and sixty five day returns, that's Q U I N C E dot com flash wiser to get free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Queen storm, slash weiser.

So you have that great story about being in your twenties, and somebody was thinking that you were a folk singer like gene bias because of your hair. So you were inspired to cut your hair. And I had this amazing effect because you cut your hair like Keith Richard sort of. And so cause such a stir, which, I mean, on the one hand, I understand, on the other hand, it's kind of crazy. You know, it's a haircut.

right? Well, that was so funny. I mean, I just had long black hair. I was just really straight. I mean, i'd love joe bias me too.

But I got tired of people just say, are you focusing her because they weren't saying in a nice way, they were more insulting me. And I was with, sometimes Robert would take made the places because I was sort of a hick. You know, I came from self jersey.

I was sort of like a little socially and apt. I was strong sense of myself, but I didn't really have a total grasp on our culture yet. But I got so sick of IT. And I just thought you, I screw them and I I looked at pictures of key Richards, and I just got my scissors and just cut IT. And actually IT looked awesome.

But I thought that looked great. yes.

And then I just went. We used to go to maxus cancer city at night. This was nineteen, nineteen seventy. And the same people that made fun of me all the time, or like, would like roll their eyes when Robert would bring me anywhere like they acted like, I mean, I was like, I just couldn't believe all the attention I got in the w all the sudden night became so cool and and I was like, instead of feeling gratitude though, I thought, you know all that for for a haircut you know if it's like, that's all IT takes, is a haircut yeah I was the same person, of course, like, but I did like that. I did like my haircut and I think really in the end, because I was so boy h looking, I don't wear makeup and is very slim. And with this trucked a pair, you know, I had more probably of a and dragon ous look and that people found appealing at that period, like one thousand, nine and seventy.

Well, you created an an iconic look for yourself you know almost by mistake and I know what you mean about um I mean there's a part of me that wants to say to those people who all of the seven having about face about you, you sort of want to say, i'll fuck .

yourself you .

still identify with your hair do you still is a big part of your I mean, your brains .

are defind I at this point I just, you know, I my I just wear my was sort of wear uniform what's comfortable? I just brade my hair usually um IT took me a long time to get used to having light coloured hair. I mean, I had dark care my whole life.

I didn't start going great til I was in my late fifty six years old. And for a while I color red or I put different higher lights. And then I thought just I just decided to just let the let IT be itself, and i'm not.

So I have a definite style for sure, and i'd like, but i'm not. I had a very youthful appearance for a long time. And in the last couple years, I can see my aging process, so I feel okay as long as I do good work, as long as I can do good work and can be reasonably pleased with my appearance, that's fine with me. I'm not so deeply connected with that anymore.

by the way. Speaking of your hair, I I saw that on your mom's birthday. You trim your hair, right? Do you still do that on your mother's birthday?

Actually, I haven't done that a long time. You, but you, I think it's. I trim my hero as also as an act of independence.

My mother cut my hair till I was like, fourteen years old, the worst hair cutter. I mean, SHE just take a parachutes and shop and then put curlers s in and try to make IT look Better. We said, my school pictures are some of the worst pictures of a child you could ever see, I think, actually.

But I love the idea, at least preparative time, that you sort of honor your mom by cutting, timing your hair on on her birthday. What do you think your kids would do to honor you? What would they do?

Do you think? Oh, I have no idea, but I honor my mother every day. I, every time I drink a cup coffee, I, I on her, her in my father, they were big coffee drinkers.

Oh, and every time I drink my coffee, they passed through my mind. I just, I didn't have always the greatest relationship with my mother. We had our problems. But the older I get, the more I admire her and the more I would do anything just to have one more cup of coffee with her would just be just sit there and talk and, you know, have a cup of coffee together.

What did you learn from her as a mom that you sort of Carried forward in your mothering?

My mother worked as a waitress her whole life. SHE had four kids. My father worked denied shift.

SHE worked as a waitress. And they have a lot of economic strife. Yet SHE was able to keep a sense of optimism in a creativity.

SHE was completely open minded. SHE had no prejudices. Her only rule when you came into our house was that you had to be respectful and kind of one another.

I think, if anything, I just realize how hard he worked like how did he do IT? I raised kids, my husband, I raised our kids ourselves. I didn't have nani. I didn't have babysitters. I had two kids, but my mother had four and he was working.

And um when I was doing laundry for us, I thought of all the laundry SHE had to do SHE took in other people's earning when I felt about IT and he was so he never complained about IT SHE was always upbeat, you know, singing like songs from the forties and SHE was just happy. The world war two is over. You you know, he just had such a great spirit.

And SHE always said the thing when, if we complained because we thought we were having difficulties, or I didn't have nice shoes to wear something and SHE always quoted, I don't know where the quote comes, but he would say, I wet because I had no shoes. And then I saw a man who had no feet. And he said that again.

But throughout our life, SHE would say that whenever we complained you, I know, didn't like our food, he would talk about the people who, but not not only shape way, but a real, a comprehension of the strike of others. But all of these things make me constantly think about other people. Yeah and I know I got that for my mother.

Yeah well, and you say, thank you a lot, don't you I mean.

yeah, that has to be yeah but I mean.

it's related to your IT has to be related to your mom, at least based what you're telling me.

I think it's well thanking my toothbrush I think came from myself because that when my mother would say the trio you're going too far .

yeah was going to say, well, that's you taking IT to the next level but that's okay. You you put your own .

spin on IT yes exactly.

Um when you'd left home at a Young age um and when you move to new york and that whole extraordinary adventure journey began, did you ever reach back to your folks asking for advice, checking in? Or were you very separate from them during that time?

H I was I very close with my family and I always kept in touch with them even if I was sending them postcards from new york to new jersey. But I didn't tell them about any hardships or difficulties I was having. They had their own, and I just thought I was my duty to figure things out myself.

I really came to new york to get a job because there wasn't any work in self jersey. yeah. And when I finally got a good job at a bookstore and then I met Robert, I mean, my life was magical.

And I mean, we had our problems and we didn't have much money. But IT was in a very magical time for me, because I was from the know, a very rural area. And without really, really anything cultural happening, there is a squared dance hall across the street. But there really wasn't IT wasn't a cultural hub. You had to go to philadephia camden.

But I love that story of you going to feel of your dad taking you to philadelphia. And you saw the .

picasso art. Yeah, I saw art for the first time in person. Yes, yes, especially the vocation.

S but I i'd loved IT. I'd loved all the energy. I'd loved that people were walking on the streets at night. You know i'd loved everything about IT. So I was quite happy where .

your parents worried about you or where they call or they didn't think about IT to me.

But my mother always worried, you know he would worry about us all the time. But ah they know I was straight more and then they were happy when I met Robert because I had a companion sure, someone who could to look out for me yes, although is pretty much the other way around, I think yes.

So let's talk about your gorgeous book, just kids. What a work of art. What a work of art.

And I know that right before Robert died, you made the promise to him to write down your life, his life together. And that was one thousand nine hundred and eighty nine. And then in two thousand and ten.

you completed IT. Is that right? yes.

So can you talk about how that span of time? I mean, I know a lot happened obviously in that span of time, but the journey of finding a way to tell IT, and how did that happen? Pty, how did you find your voice?

IT was very difficult because I, I mostly wrote poetry stories. I, I wanted right fiction, not non fiction. But I, I had promised doubt, and he asked me to write our story. And I knew that our story was, I knew IT backwards and forwards, but I wanted to present IT in a way that would make him happy, that he be proud of. But he, Robert, was not a reader.

So I wanted to write something that would have a cinematic feal so that readers would like, that IT would be poetic enough that readers would be fulfilled, but also non readers could also enjoy as sort of almost like a movie. But IT took me a long time because I had never done anything like that. And I I wanted IT to be good and or not at all.

And it's and then so many things happened in the loss of my husband and my brother and and taking care of my children and having to reenter, you know, public life in order to make a living. And the book kept being shelved but I sometimes could hear robbery going, paddy, where's our book and and I had a very good editor and her and I just prayed through IT and I went through two publishers. I got drop from double day because IT took me so long um and another publisher took IT.

I had one crisis after another. Sometimes I would go in a year without working on IT and I wrote so many outlines and I wanted to get everything correct. I wanted people to have a sense of new york city yes, what IT was like in the late sixties and early seventies.

And I also wanted to represent everyone in the book well, even people I didn't like I because I didn't want a book to be um a way to speak ill of people yeah. I I wanted to put them in cultural context. So I I had to make certain that um everything was as accurate as possible. I did have a lot of diaries, which were really helpful.

That was my question because there's a lot of detail a lot right.

Well, this my mother used to every year for my birthday, get me these little dies, where, you know, you IT only gives you a half a page per day. And so I found a couple of them. A lot of them got lost.

But I found pivotal years at the Chelsea, where every day I would say, cut Roberts here, like a rockaBilly cut my hair, like Keith Richards met janus join. I wouldn't tell anything about her, which just say, mechanist joplin. And I would say, are you serious? And that's what you wrote full moon when my period was do.

But I saw I had a daily, almost a daily picture of our everyday life. Yeah, yeah. And I was really able, I have a very good memory for things like that. So I was able to reconstruct that period of time.

And through the music we were listening to, right? And and the work that we both did, I was having a lot of difficulty finishing IT and I had some work to doing france and uh, john y debt and venecia ody had a complex in the south of france and they had a little chapel that he had renovated and they let me stay there and finish the book. And Johnny, john, I was very encouraging.

He would tap on the door, and then I open the door, and there will be a little tray of food, oh, my, and sometimes a little glass of very good wine or something. But yes, and never bothered me. And that's where I finished the book, and I ll never forget I when he was done the book, he, he's knocked on my door and I opened like, he stayed up like, all night long or whatever and I said, teach, how is IT and he goes, it's a fucking and masterpiece and I went, oh my god.

That was my first review. And that frost you. Oh my god, SHE poor us for zoom again.

Oh my god, can you believe this? This was driving me crazy. But nothing.

faces. Party smith, honestly, nothing. Thank god. right? We're back.

God damn what the fuck .

we just talking about.

We were, who .

knows? H.

I was telling, I was about Johnson. I was telling you about anne is my first reader.

Yes, yes, which is a huge responsibility. But obviously he was up to the task.

He was very encouraging, and he sent me on my way.

You know, there's something speaking of encouraging artists there. There is something about being in proximities to other artists and thinkers and and so on, that you were in the mist b when you were living at the Chelsea hotel, and of course, those early days in york. Can you talk explicitly about the value of being close to people who chAllenge you and and really lift you up? I mean, I don't .

know if I can do IT justice, but I was very fortunate because when I was at the chell sea um I mean I was there private to the minds and and the advice of people like Williams burns and games burg Bobby new worth uh I met a lot of musicians um janis joplin, of course and but A A lot of different people that came in and out of the Chelsea we were all living there so even though I was a girl working in a bookstore, I was living in the same places as they were for a week or to IT with my home yeah I truthfully to this day don't know why these people uh what they saw in me and why they um gave me so much of their time but they did I didn't take drugs at the time.

I I mean i've never really taken drugs, smoke some part but even and I wasn't smoking, but I had a lot of clarity. I was a responsible person, but I was not a fledged artist. And they a lot of people took me under their wing.

And like William burns, he was set and talk to me and talk to me about my imagination or shammers tic powers, but also he would tell me what kind of advice he would give me. For instance, keep your name clean if you get, you know, if you have to make big decisions, especially about your work, one might be more lucrative, more exciting. But you have to make the decision that you can live with for the rest of your life and to do your best to keep your name clean.

And I I don't know you know really what to say, except I was so lucky and I had my own sense of myself and I was a bit arrogant. But I wasn't so arrogant that I failed to recognize that these people had a lot to teach me. And IT was, as I I I think I said in the book, but I the best way I can say IT IT was my university.

I mean, it's you ve got your masters, your P. H. D. You've got a real right in a couple .

doctor is .

yeah exactly a couple doctors. I was very I love this from the the book when you talk about this exchange that you had with sam shepherd, who was also another very close friend of yours, and he said, you can't make a mistake when you improvise and you said, what if I screw up rhythm and he said, you can't. It's like drumming.

If you miss a beat, you create another and you wrote, in this simple exchange, sam taught me the secretive improvisation, one that i've access my whole life. Yes, that is so be beautiful. And I believe that totally IT certainly applies to my own life with proposition.

And it's and in in our practical life, everything that we do on stage, I I make so many mistakes on days, forget lyrics are all kinds of disasters, and I just take them in stride. You can't make a mistake, you just create a new beat. And also, if you're performing, if you stay in touch with the people, you can do anything, right? You can, you can tell him I am having a weird moment here.

Yeah right .

and people go, it's OK party. It's okay. We'll wait for you. They'll send you energy as long as you take IT in and give IT back to them, right? You can transfigure anything you it's just is the transformation of waste. You can you can take something and create a new thing.

will get more wisdom from Patty Smith after the super quick way. Stay tuned.

Um will you talk about the decision to leave new york and got detroit with your beloved friend? And what about the shit you got for that?

That oh god, a lot. Oh my god. You know, I didn't really think when I left people would I would be any big deal.

I wasn't like by Dylan. I wasn't meta. I wasn't the grateful dead.

I don't, you know, I was. I was just doing my part. yeah. And that's how I thought you when I did my first record. I just wanted to lay some groundwork for future generations.

I thought rocks and roll was getting you too glamorous to um I thought I was getting too commercial. I was just trying to bring IT down to, you know, strip IT down to three cords and poetry. And then I was gonna be on my way, so I wound up doing for records.

But I never plan to be like a rock star. I don't really have. I'm not a great singer. I had no training, no musical training. I said what I had to say.

And then I felt, as I was performing, somewhat redundant and I also felt because in europe I was very popular. I thought the direction i'm going is possible fame and fortune. But I wasn't growing.

I was becoming agitated, um somewhat demanding, stressed. I wasn't writing. I I felt that I wasn't evolving as a human being. But at the same time, I had really, after having some very interesting, beautiful relationships with other fellas, I found the person that I really loved and wanted to spend my life with. And I didn't like being parted with him.

And we decided in a headband, in a rock world story from a Young age to leave mutually leave the music business and live a quiet life and um see where that took us. And so IT was just time IT was time to see what I was made of yeah and IT wasn't easy but i've never once had any regret about IT. I never regret a thing.

I loved my husband and I. I went into that life willingly. Yes, and IT required as such amount of sacrifice. But one thing I learned is sacrifice isn't bad. It's only bad if you resent the sacrifices you're making, which I didn't.

And then having yeah how soon how soon after you made that move did you start having your babies well.

I made the move in seventy nine, and I had my son in eighty two and my daughter and eighty seven, and I was also getting older. I was forty one when I had my daughter. So those years, because I had to um you know have new disciplines and I had to work with how much time I had to myself, became the years where I really became a writer. And in my whole life that's what I wanted. More than anything, IT was, of all my disciplines, being a writer is the thing I most proud of and the most in terms of myself. And I had to find my nich to write, wake up at five in the morning when the kid kids were sleeping, work from five to eight, then they got up, got them ready for school and then whatever rid them my husband and I were in but I I found a way to um to develop my work into study and IT was you know um the people found IT appalling that I did that but I grew, I grew as a writer, I grew as a human being.

I find IT appalling that people found IT appalling.

You know how appalling when we, my husband and I did a record dream of life together, yes, and IT got terror. Was really they really just scared IT. And there was a picture of me in the village voice um with my hair and brains because I work and my hair and brains on the album cover with coal. Others basically you know saying that I had I mean basically they were um this is a newspaper that used to put me on the cover. Now I had turned into like a female cow, you know because I.

Oh .

god, so was very a and also I would, after my husband died, came back into public life because I needed work. And still, to this day, people will say to me, well, in the eighties you couldn't do anything. I said, in the eighties I had two children till I washed .

a million diapers.

I planted trees. I, I, I wrote every day I evolved as a human being. I I had spent a certain amount time IT was you know um only a certain amount time. But I spent all that time with the love of my life. How can you say that I did nothing in the eighties?

Well, I mean, I really think that this is what you are describing is the the unfortunate polite of being a woman because you're like, fuck and damned if you do and damned if you do, right. You could argue that the eighties in this period of time, where in which you develop this discipline to get up before the kids and do your riding and then raise two human beings with the love of your life, might have been your most fruitful and productive time of your life. So I think it's also .

Julia i'm sorry, I think that part of IT is also this idea of like of media right and uh people's headspace where if you aren't in the public guy you don't exist, if you're in artist, if you aren't in the public guide, they say I did nothing because IT wasn't reported, right? You know they think that because I wasn't in the media that I didn't exist or what I did didn't matter. And my I have pride in what I accomplished in those years as well. I would pride i'm not a very good homework er i'm not very good at domestic test. But I was proud that I was able to do my best to do whatever I could to to be the best mother I knew how to be and that's that's its own worth, that has its own.

That's not small potatoes.

not small pot. That's not nothing.

Yeah, that's not nothing. I mean, I would argue that the most important, I mean, at the end of the day, I would want to be the best mother I could be over anything else. You know, you are such a fanciful and you're such an imaginative person. Were you able to meet your children in that place, in that place of pretend? I would think that that was something that would be a good meeting ground for you guys.

Ah yes, we did. And then what I learned with my siblings, because I I was the oldest, so um I designed a lot of our play and um that's a territory I know well. But I also know that part of the territory when you have to let them go and have their imaginable place with their friends and with each other, you know, I have a beautiful relationship with my kids.

They lost their father very Young. They were six and twelve and i've been their parent. And i'm really happy with the communication, uh, that the three of us have, you know, they're both creative musicians. They're good, solid people and i'm very happy with them. Yeah, my kids .

are both creative two. And I have to say that IT IT gives me enormous joy to see .

them or frozen. Hi.

it's me again. Are you believing all these technical problems? I just keep freezing on the zoom.

This really, honestly doesn't happen to us usually. And I felt so bad for party, but SHE took IT completely instore. Okay.

i'm just gonna go to the bathroom.

Be afraid to take .

long term that is going .

in the bathroom.

I get this figured out. You're doing great. So sorry, july is going to run to bathroom too. OK.

okay, i'm back. hype. Addy, hi, all right. So what was I gonna say, I was gona, I was gna say, how did your, how did you help your children navigate the grief of losing their dad? I mean, that's a huge question I realized. But if you can speak to a or is IT just too much as well?

I can't answer IT for them. I can only say that we kept him a with us daily, and we still do. And my brother died a month later, so we had to their favorite uncle, who is only forty two, and my husband was forty five.

So we had the loss of both of them to navigate. And I I think a lot of IT was just keeping them present is keeping them present and just continuing moon, i'm a worker, so I worked. I tried my best to keep some seamless something certain things seamless.

But IT was is actually such a difficult thing to talk about. Yes, I can only say it's easier to simply say um and I think it's it's a good thing to do with all the people that we love. We go through a certain period that is almost missed cally terrible and then when we reenter life, we just we just make him part of everything exactly.

We talk about them not always like you know like he's a saint um some funny stories or sad stories or we wonder help what he would think of, what would he think of social media? What would he think of lack of privacy? What would he you think of you know, metallic having you know one point four million people in a concert in in russia? What would you think of political change? But we just make them part of our our conversation yeah.

I mean, I think that I lost my sister and my dad in a very short period of time. And I I agree .

with keeping them .

a part of you is like your relationship with them changes. You still have a relationship, right? But if it's just it's a new way of being with them.

Yes, absolutely.

Um I remembers that you were talking about when you and your sister were with your brother after he had passed here with his body, and you were started to laugh hysterically. Ally, and I have to tell you something IT was uncanned reading that because the exact same thing happened to me with my sister. I was with my other sister and we were with my my disease sister's body, and we became hysterically laughing. Isn't that strange that we both have that same reaction in a way?

Well, I think a lot of that comes from closest and trust. I mean, I cherish that that we did that because my my brother, toddy lindon, and I laugh so much as siblings. And sometimes if we got started, we'd like, laugh ourselves sick. Oh, you know that feeling.

you can stop.

You stop. And my brother especially, was the big laughter among us, and the fact that my sister and I were able still to laugh like that without him physically I mean with with him past, you know he he couldn't laugh with us physically but the fact that we could still do IT yeah um even without him made us both feel like he was within us and that we had lost that ability. And I think that that's a wonderful thing. I found IT such a such a joyful expression of our mutual love for him.

Oh yes, without question. I I think it's a positively beautiful. I also, I wanted to tell you that my dad, who passed away in two thousand sixteen and he was a business man but he was also a poet himself and his stuff was published and he was actually the head of the poetry society of the east to whatever called I don't know anyway um and he wrote a poem that we actually put on his tombstone and I thought you might be interested to here that may I .

read IT too yes, yes, yes, yes.

It's called explanation. And IT goes like this. God must mean for us to reason that the flower first in bloom taught and shining, is not altered even in its dying season. God's the present ever missing till we meet IT when we die. Life's the ambush of tomorrow and the sorrow of goodbye.

Wa, that's beautiful. The ambush of tomorrow is that the line ambush?

Life's the ambush of tomorrow.

Life seeing and what a line ambush to use I mean, i'm sorry to take apart it's so beautiful but to use the word ambush within that poe, that's that's a real poet I mean that someone who really understands and can turn words that is will it's like he got the clay of the word and turn that beautiful.

I'm happy to send you his guess. When he right, when he died, he left. He had never published a book of palms.

He d only had pumps, published specific pumps. And he put together a book of poetry that he entitled, letters written but not sent. And IT was for me and my sisters and yeah, my mom and and my step mom.

Anyway, IT was very, very meaningful. I thought you'd be interested in that since you're such A A poet yourself. And I was going to ask if you if you wouldn't mind either saying or singing the memorial song that you, because it's so oh, beautiful that is saying for robot.

for Robert.

for Robert only if you went to.

if you don't want to, that I, you know that little song when Robert died, I do that. I had to speak at his memorial and my husband drove to south north CarOlina. We used to get like a little place and sit on the beach because I love the sea and I walked up and down and up and down the beach um trying to think of what to say and this little song came into my head.

I've never recorded IT or anything. I just really wrote IT for robbert. So it's called memorial song. And what i'll do is, okay, I just need to get my other classes OK. Sorry.

no words. Okay, so I have to stop again for just a second. Remember a few minutes ago in, paddy said that he would take mistakes and transfigure them.

Well, as you've heard, the internet has been freezing like crazy during our whole conversation, and it's about to freeze again right in the middle of paddies. Beautiful song, but this is Patty Smith IT doesn't matter. In fact, it's kind of great paddy transfers the moment. So right when paddy starts ee freeze on the zoom, I can still hear her perfectly, but she's looking at me just frozen on her screen and he just keeps going. And well, anyway, just listen to what happens.

I haven't looked at IT for a long time, but i'm gonna sing IT to you. K, um because IT was written as a song. So Robert had Green eyes, very Green eyes.

And my dream was always, we didn't have any money when we were Young, but my dream was to someday by him, a beautiful enrolled ring because he'd loved, which I never did. But I wrote on the song instead. Little then roll bird wants to fly a way.

If I cut my hand, could I make him stay? Little, little so little, little die. Little lamoral. So must you say goodbye?

All the things that we pursue, all that we dream, are composed, as nature know, in a feather Green. Little little bird, as you like. Far IT is true.

I heard, god is where you are. Little, little, so little little die. The little lamoral bird, we must say, good bed. That was so beautiful.

god. Sh, i'd .

looked in your eyes at the, I don't know if you could tell.

oh batty, I could hear you, but I was frozen. I zoom and he just kept going.

I'd look straight your eyes at the end and really sob all of you. What a beautiful person you are. Really.

I think you are the most beautiful person. This has been an honor for me, totally and completely, to a talk to you today and be with you. And god knows, we clean tons of wisdom from this conversation.

And my favorite thing is you and your sister laughing, just like my sister and I did, because that that is, that was mystically beautiful.

Yeah, mystic, beautiful. Patty smith, thank you so much for being with us today.

Thank you. Julia, I won't forget that last look I had of your face.

No, don't forget IT blazed in my frozen zoom face in your brain. And many thanks for your patients. Oh, my god, i'm very grateful to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

What an incredibly patient, kind and wise woman that party Smith is. wow. SHE can really kept me calm during those ropes.

Ts, okay, I ve got to get my mom on zoom so I can tell her about IT. I don't freeze with her. Hi mommy. Oh, hi honey. Hi, hi, hi, hi. So i'm gonna hope that the zoom doesn't go out when i'm talking to because we had enormous technical difficulties while working with paddy, but because she's so kind, we were able to get through IT.

Well, welcome to my world. Even when IT works, is is a miracle. So I just, I turned on the computer with a sinking heart.

Mommy SHE was talking about her mother, something her mother always used to say to her whenever they would complain. Her mom used to say, I cried because I had no shoes, and then I saw a man who had no feet. Did you not use to say that to us? Have, isn't that an expression that you have said? Or am I crazy?

Well, IT not exactly. You know what my mother used to say was was well, when you get something, everybody else in the family and.

No.

we really .

good to go shopping. Well, he was on White girls. He was going to find girls. And, you know, grandma made all her clothes. And so they.

Oh my god, that is honestly, that is the funniest thing i've ever heard.

But well, it's funny. But IT didn't make me. I'm story.

Mommy, that's an awful thing. You said you. Well, anyway, he was saying IT affectionately a talking matter mother and we are talking about grief and loss because she's had, as most people, her age hab. But SHE. There was a period of time in her life where SHE lost her husband, her brother and her best friend Robert maple throw all within a very short period time. And I, I I actually remember that you were the one who talked to me once when I I think I had a friend whose mother had died and you were telling me about talking about how losing a person and it's not like the relationship and it's a new way of of of being with that person, is a new relationship.

When when my mother died, there was a neighbor, the wonderful woman, there was an older woman, and he lived a couple box down from us and just walk by with her dog. And I talked to her, and he was about the age of my mother was, and then he knew that my mother died. He wrote me and vote. And SHE said to that, that he is noted that when he loses people, that they are very much with her, that they.

he said the .

relationship changes. But it's very much you very much alive within you. And the one told I, I see that letter always because I was something that nobody had never said to me, because I think in my family my sort of discussion was stricken about grief.

And we were to a funeral yesterday, somebody that that both that I love so much and was at the fund that I felt his president so much, and I thought the joy that that he had and being with us and we had in being with him, but we just something that you felt. And when they were they playing one of the hims, which is not him that had any relation to any any construction. I M so so there was, I mean, he was, he was sort with us. Yeah.

that's a nice thing. That's comforting.

Isn't IT very .

comforting? I actually resided daddy wills poem explanation that we put on his tombstone um which I think you're familiar with and then he was kind enough to sing the song slash poem that he wrote for Robert maple thorpe when he died and SHE saying IT at his funeral and SHE saying IT for us OK pea it's called memorial song it's beautiful so IT was IT was quite the experience to talk to her she's SHE is there's nobody like her I really enjoyed being with her SHE seems to be from another another place altogether .

because a in in just kids what are read of hers are really did her which is quite wonderful experience but SHE um the fact that he said knew that he was an artist uh but that he didn't know of of what I know it's almost like you're .

you're born before .

you you I know you can you can thanks before you can walk I mean, how how how did you know that that there's something spiritual about that?

yes. And in the book he talks about going to the philadephia museum where you and I have been, of course, and seeing the pakistan and IT was like this. He was thunder struck, like, this is me. This is what I need to be doing.

SHE is a IT was remarkable when you said that you were gonna be with her. I was thinking to myself that there are very few people like patties within the world.

Yeah, she's one. And only yeah question. So are you too, mom?

Oh, thank you. You, me. No, I listen. Are you nobody but you? This joy, that's for sure.

All right, you're right. I love you. Mummy, i'm going to say goodbye now and go lie down.

light down.

You want me to lie down. I get a lie. You can lie down if you want, but I get to lie down. We had so many technical .

difficulties. I have to dinner.

Okay, go dinner. I love you too. I love you.

kay.

There is more wiser than me with lemonade premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content from each episode of the show. Subscribe now in apple podcast, make sure you're following wise than me on social media were on instagram and tiktok at ways than me and we're on facebook at wise than me podcast. Wider than me is a production of lemon auto media created and hosted by me.

Julia li drives. This show is produced by crucifies, alex michelin and ohio peace. Brad hall is a consultant producer.

Rachel neel is V P. Of new content and our S V P of weekly content and production is Steve ells. Executive producers are polite, Stephen anne whittle, Jessica cordova, cramer and me. The show is mixed by john Evans Evans with engineering help from James farber. And our music was written by Henry hall, who you can also find on spotify or wherever you listen to your music. Special thanks to welsh legal and force my mother, due to follow, follow wise with me, whether you get your podcast, and if there is a wise old lady in your life, listen up.

Hey, whie are the me listeners we wanted hear from you by just answering a few questions on our listener survey. You can share feedback about show content you'd like to see in the future and help us think about what brands would serve you best and even Better. Once you've completed the survey, you can offer for a chance to win a one hundred dollar VISA gift card.

The survey is short and sweet. We'll help us play ads you don't want to skip and keep bringing you content you love. Just go to lemon, other media dot com slash survey lemond media dot com slash survey.