Selected Lyrics, Soundtracks, Poems and
Performances
Higher Learning
(Patti Smith, Rev.
Frank Ray, Jay Dee Daugherty, Tony Shanahan)
Little child, lost in the world
Little boy, little girl
Little child lost in the earth
The sea drags you down
Down deep into the earth
Down, deep
Each time, each time we care
Each time we act a word
We act a breath, we cast a note, we sign a deed
Upon a necklace, upon human knowledge
Hear the word, let it come down
Oh my mother father sister brother
To the land let it come down, down the earth, down the
ground
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_AxTEPgWWY (Patti & Fred Smith sharing the vocals)
Notes to the Future
What did we want
What did we ever want
To shake the fragile hands of time
January 1st, 2002 - Poetry Project at St Mark’s
Church, NYC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVReuL7XxnU
(Patti without accompaniment)
Read at the United Nations HQ in 2005 – at the opening
reception for the exhibition ‘Swords into Plowshares’ 20 sculptures by Tony
Price (1937-2000) created from nuclear weapons salvage –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG5Ol7nzlhc
(w/ Philip Glass on piano)
Burning Roses
Father I am burning roses
father only God shall know
what the secret heart discloses
the ancient dances with the doe
Father I have sorely wounded
father I shall wound no more
I have waltzed among the thorns
where roses burn upon the floor
Daughter may you turn in laughter
a candle dreams a candle draws
the heart that burns
shall burn thereafter
may you turn as roses fall
(poem)
The Pride Moves Slowly
I heard you crying in your sleep
and stood above your contour there
I saw the moon behind your ear
wrists as mine, my mother’s hair
I saw you with your father’s arms
and so possess his blades,
protruding like small wings
I thought I’d never see again
The lamp of his boyhood glows,
the pride moves slowly
as in a dream. Circling
the shade’s lucent plain
Bequeathed with certain calm,
the outline of their forms
diffuse as memories stream
sown in sadness, sleep
(poem)
The Writer’s Song
I placed my mat among the reeds
I could hear the freemen who were drunk cry out
what matter what I say
will the reed cease bending
will the leper turn
In the blue crater
set with yellow hay
I could hear the freemen
drunk with sky
will the moon swell
will the flame shy
A thousand souvenirs
and a thousand prayers
and be we kings
or be we slaves
the reed still whistles
the heart still raves
the hand still grasps
a cup of love
nothing but nothing
above
I had a sake and another
it is better to write then die
banzai
some scrawl their name
on the face of the water
on vellum sheets
on heaven’s border
to breathe well
is all one can ask
and to perform a task
formed by no other
(poem - draft
version)
Qana (after
2006 airstrike in Qana, Lebanon)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE2EoU0JmMY
(live in Lebanon)
Without Chains
They say I walk strange
well that may be so
it’s been a long time
since I walked at all
Now I’m learning to walk
without chains
to talk without chains
to breathe without chains
to pray without chains
to live without chains
to love without chains
without chains
(for Murat Kunatz,
tortured and detained at Kandahar, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay Naval Base)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7shKyRQ22y0
(CBGB's Closing Night 2006)
Helpless by and with
Neil Young – with added words by Patti
Patti recorded the track for her 2007 album of covers
called Twelve
"It’s really funny when people ask you, “How does it
feel to be a rock icon?” When they say that, I always think of… like Mount Rushmore." 'Dream of Life'
(2008 DVD)
2009 with Philip Glass: reading of ‘On the Cremation of Chogyam Trungpa Vidyadhara’ by Allen Ginsberg –
which they had previously performed at Ginsberg’s memorial service in 1997
Mermaid Song (for the 2011 film The Rum Diary)
Do you remember me
The ocean rolled
Time was slow
We felt an energy
And if I could turn where you stood
Would you feel me
Would it be good
Would you remember
A mermaid burns to see
Beyond the sea
I long to see
I long to see if there's a page for me
A page for me in your diary
2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwNDZZops5M
Patti performing ‘Footnote to Howl’ (voice and clarinet) by Allen Ginsberg w/
Philip Glass and Tibetan monks
Capitol Letter (for the 2013 film The Hunger
Games: Catching Fire)
Mercy Is (for the 2014 film Noah)
Mercy is as mercy does, wandering the wild
The stars are eyes watching you, a breath upon a cloud
Two white doves, two white wings
To carry you away to a land in memory
The sky is high, the earth is green and cool below your
feet
So swiftly now, beneath the bow, your father waits for
thee
To wrap you in his healing arms as the night sky weeps
Two white doves, two white wings to carry you away
For mercy is the healing wind that whispers as you sleep
That whispers you to sleep
In 2016, as part of an exhibition of art, writing and
performance, in the former chapel of Reading Jail, which was opened to the
public for the first time, Patti Smith read 'De Profundis' a long letter
written in 1897 by Oscar Wilde while he was incarcerated in Reading Goal for
two years hard labour.
These words were first published in 1905 in an edited
version, and it is that version that Patti read.
The 3-hour performance started with a sung lament and
included Patti's own interjections and interactions with the audience: Click here for the video
article: July 2018 Beds Are Burning by Midnight Oil in Dublin in 2018
