Gone Again (Remastered) Patti Smith

• 1 Gone Again 03:16
• 2 Beneath the Southern Cross 04:35
• 3 About a Boy 08:15
• 4 My Madrigal 05:09
• 5 Summer Cannibals 04:10
• 6 Dead To The World 04:17
• 7 Wing 04:53
• 8 Ravens 03:56
• 9 Wicked Messenger 03:49
• 10 Fireflies 09:33
• 11 Farewell Reel 03:54
• Total Runtime 55:47

Info for Gone Again (Remastered)

With her first release since the self-imposed exile that followed 1988's "Dream of Live", Patti Smith reclaims her title as the original punk poet. Though the songs on "Gone Again" bear little relationship to the punk movement that she helped spawn in the mid-'70s, the defiant, fiercely individualistic spirit of her early recordings remains intact. "Gone Again" has a moody, elegiac feel, as many of the songs are inspired by Smith's recent encounters with tragedy: the deaths of her husband and collaborator Fred "Sonic" Smith; her longtime friend, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe; and her brother Todd.

Smith is that rarest of birds, a songwriter whose poetic reach does not exceed her grasp. Even during her eight-year recording hiatus, she never stopped writing poetry, and the raw, vivid imagery of songs like "Beneath The Southern Cross," "The Raven" and the downright Rimbaudesque "Summer Cannibals" are prime examples of her lyrical prowess. The passing of her loved ones has forced Smith to look more deeply into her own heart, and these compositions reveal a deepened, almost transcendent perspective that makes "Gone Again" sound like hard-won wisdom being whispered in your ear.

"After years of silence, Patti Smith returned to music with a series of concerts in late 1995. It had been years since she had performed live -- for most of the '80s and '90s, she concentrated on domestic life. Following the death of her husband, Fred "Sonic" Smith, in early 1995, Smith began playing music in public again and those concerts eventually led to the triumphant comeback Gone Again. Her husband wasn't the only loved one Smith lost between 1988's Dream of Life and 1996's Gone Again -- her brother and her close friend Robert Mapplethorpe both died. Appropriately, grief and loss hang over Gone Again, but the overall effect is not one of indulgent melancholy. Instead, it's a sober but strengthing listen -- this is healing optimistic music. Like most of Smith's best work, the songs on Gone Again aren't proper songs, they're song poems, with cascading music and dense, inspired lyrics. Smith sounds more mature than her earlier records -- there are only a handful of out-and-out rockers, and most of the album is subtle and folky -- which gives the album extra weight. Gone Again is more than a comeback, it's a revitalization -- Patti Smith simply hasn't sound so engaged and provocative since Easter." (Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG)

Patti Smith, vocals, guitar
Lenny Kaye, guitar
Luis Resto, keyboards
Jay Dee Daugherty, drums
Tony Shanahan, bass
Additional musicians:
Oliver Ray, guitar, whistle
Tom Verlaine, guitar
Brian Sperber, guitar
César Díaz, guitar
Whit Smith, guitar
Eileen Ivers, fiddle
Hearn Gadbois, percussion
Jane Scarpantoni, cello
John Cale, organ
Kimberly Smith, mandolin
Jeff Buckley, vocals

Recorded 1995 at Electric Lady Studios
Produced by Malcolm Burn, Lenny Kaye

Digitally remastered

No biography found.

This album contains no booklet.