Patti Smith at 79: Horses Turns 50, Family, Grief, and Rock’s Enduring Power

Patti Smith’s Horses at 50: The Pulse of Punk That Won’t Quit

There are rare moments in music when an artist returns to the stage not just to celebrate a record, but to revisit the very bones of their own legend. Patti Smith’s 2025 tour, marking the fiftieth anniversary of her classic punk debut Horses, has been exactly that: a celebration, a reckoning, and a living testament to how far one voice can carry.

Smith, now 79, ripped through two nights at New York’s Beacon Theater, her presence undiminished, her movements still charged with rock and roll’s convulsive energy. The crowd, hungry for nostalgia but also for raw power, got both—especially when she played “Gloria” three times, each more feverish than the last. For Patti Smith, holding back the punchline wasn’t about restraint. It was about mastery. She taunted, “Jesus died for somebody’s siiiiins…thank you, Jesus!”—a line as electric now as it was in 1975.

The Family Behind the Legend

Smith’s band is a living archive of her journey. Guitarist Lenny Kaye, her creative soulmate, has been at her side since her earliest poetry readings. Drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, a Horses original, still powers her rhythm. Tony Shanahan, who joined her during her 1996 creative rebirth, covers piano, bass, guitar, and vocals. But the connections run deeper: her son Jackson plays guitar, and her daughter Jessie joins on piano for the encore. These aren’t just musicians—they are threads in Smith’s personal tapestry, and their presence brings a familial warmth to every show.

One can’t ignore how these family ties have shaped Smith’s music. “Kimberly,” perhaps the most underrated song from Horses, is a love letter to her baby sister. Its doo-wop shuffle, inspired by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs’ “Stay,” channels the wonder and chaos a newborn brings. Smith’s voice, unguarded and wild, turns the experience of siblinghood into a psychedelic hymn—no angst, just awe.

Grief, Memoir, and the Bread of Angels

Smith’s creative pulse isn’t limited to music. This year, she released Bread of Angels, a memoir as tough and candid as Just Kids. Here, Smith breaks her silence on topics she once shielded from public view: her marriage to MC5 guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith, her years of isolation in Detroit, and the devastating loss she felt after Fred’s death in 1994. The book is not just a story of survival—it’s a window into the heart of an artist who has chosen, time and again, to turn pain into poetry.

At her NYC book launch in November, Smith paid tribute to her late husband with a haunting version of “Because the Night,” recalling how she took Bruce Springsteen’s demo and wrote her own words “for the great love of my life, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith.” The memoir dives deep into grief, exploring her album Gone Again, which she admits left her feeling exposed and vulnerable. For Smith, public grief has always been complicated; she prefers the role of superhero over victim, but Bread of Angels shows her wrestling with vulnerability in a way that’s both relatable and brave.

One story lingers: Smith’s son Jackson, then twelve, meets Springsteen. Jackson mentions his late father planned to take him for his first motorcycle ride on his thirteenth birthday. Springsteen, keeping Fred’s promise, arrives at Smith’s home and takes Jackson out for that ride. The moment is bittersweet—a testament to loss, love, and the threads that connect artists and families across generations.

Horses: A Record That Refuses to Fade

Why does Horses still matter, fifty years on? It’s not just the songs—though “Gloria,” “Land,” and “Kimberly” are as vibrant as ever. It’s the album’s DNA: punk energy fused with poetic ambition, doo-wop rhythms, and raw storytelling. Smith didn’t just make rock and roll—she made it her own, channeling influences from Bob Dylan to Ronnie Spector, filtering her Rimbaud through the voice of South Jersey grit.

Her live shows remain unpredictable. She’ll slip in a Byrds cover (“So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star”)—even if it’s not her finest moment—just to shred some feedback guitar and keep things honest. She’ll dedicate songs to absent friends and dead heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, even Jesus. At the Beacon, she honored Television’s Tom Verlaine with a 15-minute medley, celebrating the legendary CBGB residency that helped launch punk’s golden era.

Smith’s devotion to her fans is palpable. She revels in moments where “20,000 girls call their names out to me,” climbing onto the piano for a boastful chorus—“Marie! Ruth! But to tell you the truth!”—and reveling in the connection. For her, fandom isn’t passive; it’s a spiritual quest, a chase for “illuminations” that Rimbaud himself might envy.

Punk’s Past, Present, and Future

Patti Smith’s legacy is built on more than music. It’s about the risks she took as a woman in the 1970s, refusing to change lines like “come on like some heroine” because “heroine” meant a female hero, not a drug reference. It’s about turning Motown classics into stories from Thousand and One Nights, making rock and roll into a mythic landscape where danger and wonder collide.

Her performances are full of bravado and self-awareness. The arrogance of “my sins, my own, they belong to me”—a line she’s revisited as widow and survivor—takes on new weight in the face of loss. Smith honors grief in her music, but she always returns to joy, to the “dancing—though not bare—feet” that have carried her through half a century of artistic evolution.

As she closes her shows, leading the crowd through “Ghost Dance” and “People Have the Power,” Smith reminds us that rock and roll is both a personal journey and a communal celebration. Even as she mourns, she insists on joyful noise. The world she conquered in 1975 is still hers to claim, as long as she keeps singing.

Patti Smith’s 50th anniversary tour is more than a tribute to a classic album—it’s a living chronicle of punk’s enduring fire, the family bonds that sustain it, and the courage required to turn grief into art. Smith’s story proves that the most powerful revolutions aren’t always loudest—they’re the ones that refuse to fade, year after year, song after song.