The “greatest sadness” of Patti Smith’s entire life and career
Like most of her peers, Patti Smith struggles whenever a legend’s life is cut short, often lost to the endless stream of what-ifs.
There are a number of artists you could look at when thinking about where their lives and careers might have taken them. Jeff Buckley was only 30 when he passed away in 1997, on the cusp of a major creative and commercial breakthrough – one that you could argue that he got years later, after the fact, when the cloud of what-ifs settled, and his voice became infinite.
Many musicians wonder where Kurt Cobain would have gone had he not died by suicide in 1994. At the ill-fated age of 27, Cobain cut his chops as the torchbearer of the entire grunge movement, becoming a legacy rock act whose main game was reinventing the pillars of rock music itself. To Cobain, it wasn’t about pretences or themes that might’ve been offensive to oppressed groups, but about being authentic in a unified way that actually celebrated the good in music itself.
The list goes on. Kathleen Hanna once ruminated on where Cobain might’ve gone had he lived past his own movement, and the same could be said for many heroes – Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, and Ian Curtis, to name a few. It’s perhaps worse for the people who worked in close quarters with visionaries who die young, like Patti Smith, who brushed shoulders with many whose lives were cut short.
One of whom was her husband and MC5 guitarist, Fred Smith. In the past, Patti has been candid about how Fred inspired her to greatness; her appreciation poured into her song ‘Frederick’, her poetic tribute to her collaborator and a heartfelt message of goodbye. Fred was the epitome of someone whose influence rippled out in subtle ways, from his support of his wife’s writing to how his nickname inspired Sonic Youth’s name.
In Patti’s eyes, he’s also the epitome of someone whose time was cut short before they even began. As she reflected to Rolling Stone, “He felt pride when somebody like Kurt Cobain acknowledged him. Sonic Youth took their name from him. But he did not want to be remembered as ‘He did this in 1969.’
She went on, “Fred was really funny: He didn’t want a whole lot for himself, but he wanted me to have a gold record. I said, “I don’t really care whether I have a gold record.” But he wanted me to have one. That’s my greatest sadness: that people didn’t get to see or hear more of him. I looked forward to him coming out more in the world.”
Clearly, it was Fred’s humility that left an impact on Smith, especially when it came to the dynamics of his own relationships and proximity to his own heroes. What’s more, people like Fred often don’t know the expanse of their own impact until after they’re gone, which is also one of the most brutal goddamn realities about people who go before their time.
Fortunately, however, their memory lives on through their teachings, and in Fred’s case, Patti knew it was about his natural appreciation for his own work and how it impacted those around him. It’s just a shame that he never got to flex his muscles beyond his cultlike legacy in MC5.
