Patti Smith Complete: Lyrics, Notes and Reflections Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Patti Smith Complete: Lyrics, Notes and Reflections Book

Patti Smith, pioneering punk diva, has always worshipped at the altar of the word, and she opens this book with a quote from her mentor and friend, the late Allen Ginsberg: "The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy." If that is true, then this volume serves as Smith's Book of Common Prayer, containing all the lyrics from her past seven albums, and spanning two and a half decades. She picks out both salient and arcane compositions and annotates them with an unstinting eye for detail and history, allowing us to stand a moment in her flat-heeled karate shoes and see what inspired her to pen these songs. Who among us suspected that 1971's "Redondo Beach," with its grizzly images of loss and suicide, was written about an argument Smith had with her sister? In addition to the thumbnail sketches and the unexpurgated journal entries, Smith has collected more than 150 photographs (some never before published) by the likes of Annie Liebovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Michael Stipe, and Linda McCartney. There is one particularly disturbing image of the singer during her painful recovery from a broken back, which she suffered as a result of a stage fall in 1977, proving that there is little that the singer has held back in her effort to communicate who she is to her fans.Why did she go to all the trouble? According to Smith, her fans had been clamoring for her to publish her lyrics for years, but until recently she didn't feel she had a substantial enough body of work. Besides, she claims that she was tired of everyone else deconstructing her songs and publishing what they thought she meant. "And they were always inaccurate," she writes. So, now, Patti Smith is finally able to set the record straight. --Jaan UhelszkiRead More

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  • Product Description

    The release of any new material by legendary poet and musician Patti Smith, either written or recorded, is cause for celebration. But last fall, when Smith released her lyrics in a lavishly illustrated and annotated book, crowds turned out in record numbers across the country at book festivals, libraries, and local clubs to celebrate this artist's magnificent and ongoing journey in words and music. The Chicago Tribune describes Patti Smith Complete as "a collection of her songwriting oeuvre, notes, and unpublished photos by Robert Mapplethorpe and Annie Liebovitz, and countless memorabilia from the complex life of this nearly fifty-two-year-old image of American individuality."

    Now in paperback, in a beautifully designed package, here are the words and pictures that influenced a generation from the fever pitch of performance to the solitude of the artist. Never has a collection of lyrics offered up images from a lifetime as intimate and forthright as those collected in Patti Smith Complete.

  • 0385490801
  • 9780385490801
  • Patti Smith
  • 1 November 1999
  • Anchor Books/Doubleday
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 288
  • Ill
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