The Friendship of Patti Smith and Bob Dylan

"It just shows you how life can unfold in the most beautiful, unexpected way." That's how Patti Smith wrapped up the long, winding and revelatory story of her initial meeting with Bob Dylan—far more meet-profound than meet-cute—while discussing these two kindred souls’ intertwined histories during a conversation with Jeff Slate while in Tulsa for her extraordinarily powerful performance at Cain’s Ballroom to celebrate the opening of the Bob Dylan Center in May 2022.

As Smith recalled, the story began with Dylan arriving at Greenwich Village club The Other End (also known as The Bitter End) to see her perform on June 26, 1975, the second show of a five-night residency. They already shared a similar backstory of leaving home to pursue music and freedom in New York City in their early twenties, yet this would be the first time the two would meet.

At that time, Smith was a 28-year-old poet, fronting a rock ‘n’ roll band, laying the foundation for the explosion of the punk scene in the U.S. and mere months away from recording her incendiary debut album "Horses." Dylan, meanwhile, was just half a year removed from the release of his piercing and poetic masterpiece "Blood on the Tracks," and celebrating—on that exact date—the release of “The Basement Tapes,” the eagerly anticipated collection of songs recorded with The Band some years back.

Smith recalled the atmosphere that evening as "different," noting that "that there was an electricity in that room." After the show, Dylan crashed the green room and asked aloud if there were any poets nearby. "I hate poetry," Smith—a brilliant poet and passionately committed to the form—instinctively exclaimed, as if rebuffing Dylan’s inquiry. On site to witness the cat-and-mouse exchange, rife with Smith's wordplay and charming nervousness, was photographer Chuck Pulin, snapping photos and immortalizing the meeting.

Continuing to reminisce, Smith jumped ahead twenty years. Choosing to focus on married life and raising her children rather than record and tour through much of the 1980s and early ‘90s, she found herself battling depression following the devastating loss of her onetime romantic partner and longtime friend, the boundary-pushing photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, in 1989 and, in quick succession, the passing of brother Todd and husband Fred “Sonic” Smith in 1994. That’s when Dylan picked up the phone, extending a lifeline and encouraging Smith to resume her musical and artistic journey.

Smith returned to the stage, joining Dylan on the 1995 “Paradise Lost Tour,” a ten-show run across the Northeast. Slowly returning to her familiar element, Smith opened the concert each night, many times singing along to “Dark Eyes” during Dylan’s headlining set and, for the final show in Philadelphia, also stepping up to the mic for “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.”

That tour helped to rejuvenate Smith and she’s remained thankful to Dylan ever since. What started as an auspicious backstage visit in 1975 blossomed into an enduring friendship through the “Paradise Lost” trek and, another twenty-plus years later, to Smith accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature on Dylan’s behalf, delivering a stunningly moving version of his 1963 classic “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” at the ceremony in Stockholm. Beautiful and unexpected, indeed.