Just kids…
If you admire Patti Smith at all you’ve probably read Just Kids by now. If you don’t and haven’t I’d urge you to. A beautiful portrait of pure young love, of new york at its best, but most of all of artists finding their respective voices and paths. It inspired me, made me cry, and more than anything made me wish I’d been young twenty five years earlier and 3470 miles to the west. And this week it will be Radio 4’s book of the week, read by Patti. Some writers make poor readers, this one, a performance poet by default, electrifies the text, makes the hair on your neck stand on end. Years ago I saw her play an acoustic show at Charleston Manor where Vanessa Bell had lived. In between haunting songs and a performance so strong, so sexy that the middle aged folk of Sussex danced wildly along in their twinsets, she read from Virgina Woolf’s “ The Waves”.
The reading so ingraved itself on my conscience I still read Virginia Woolf in a thick New Jersey Accent.

I first heard Patti’s music when i found a battrered copy of horses in selectadisc in soho when i was about 17 – a wild eyed girl staring out from amongst the coloured album sleeves in pure black and white, the perfect record cover. I bought the record and somehow the music and the picture together made everything alright. I was very happy to find out, reading just kids, that pretty much the same thing happened to Patti herself when she found Rimbaud’s Illuminations. Except i didn’t have the guts to steal my find.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 6:08 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.