Such work has, however, been complemented by an embrace of new beginnings and adventure, often achieved by returning to places, themes and styles Smith has explored before but looking for fresh angles and new perspectives.
‘Grateful’, which appeared on Gung Ho (2000) was a song that recalled the late Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, while ‘Mother Rose’ (from Trampin’, 2004) remembered Smith’s recently deceased mother. Much of the 1996 album Gone Again was written as a response to the loss of Smith’s husband Fred ‘Sonic ‘Smith, as well as her brother Todd and her long-term friends and collaborators Robert Mapplethorpe and Richard Sohl the album also contained the song ‘About a Boy’, an homage to Kurt Cobain. Her musical output since the 1990s has been characterized by memory work, not least in a number of pieces written in response to the passing of friends and family. Smith herself has been no stranger to such memory work, via her involvement in biographical projects such as her book Just Kids and the film Dream of Life. Patti Smith’s late work is invariably connected by critics and fans to the work of her ‘classic’ era (the 1970s punk scene) and the extent to which recent work lives up to, develops or exceeds that on which the artist’s reputation was based. Pre-publication draft of chapter published in in Patti Smith: Outside, edited by Claude Chastagner (Montpellier: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée, 2015), 113-35. Words from the New World: Adventure and Memory in Patti Smith’s Late Voice
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